1949 in art

Events from the year 1949 in art.

Events

 * Formation of Penwith Society of Arts in St Ives, Cornwall.
 * Philadelphia Artists Equity is established in Pennsylvania, United States, to protect artists' rights and improve working and economic conditions for fine artists.
 * Young Contemporaries exhibition, initiated by Carel Weight for the British Society of Artists Galleries, establishes the New Contemporaries series.
 * David Jones begins a 5-year sequence of watercolours of flowers in glasses.
 * Yves Klein paints his first monochromes, while apprenticed to a picture-frame maker in London.

Awards

 * Archibald Prize: Arthur Murch – Bonar Dunlop

Works

 * Francis Bacon – Head III, Head IV, Head V, Head VI
 * Brenda Chamberlain – The Fisherman's Return (National Museum of Wales)
 * Salvador Dalí
 * Leda Atomica
 * The Madonna of Port Lligat (original version; Haggerty Museum of Art, Milwaukee, Wisconsin)
 * Paul Delvaux – The Temple
 * Sir William Reid Dick – Lady Godiva (equestrian bronze, Coventry)
 * Sir Russell Drysdale – West Wyalong
 * Frida Kahlo
 * Diego and I
 * The Love Embrace of the Universe, the Earth (Mexico), Myself, Diego, and Señor Xolotl
 * Tadeusz Kantor – Man with Umbrella
 * Wifredo Lam = Femme avec un Oiseau
 * L. S. Lowry
 * The Canal Bridge
 * The Football Match
 * The Spire
 * Henry Moore – Family Group (first casting)
 * Robert Motherwell – Five in the Afternoon
 * Barnett Newman – Abraham
 * Pablo Picasso – Dove
 * William Scott
 * Frying Pan and Eggs
 * Still Life with Candlestick
 * Graham Sutherland – Somerset Maugham
 * Steffen Thomas – Statue of Eugene Talmadge
 * Vladimir Tretchikoff – The Dying Swan
 * Boris Vladimirski – Roses for Stalin
 * Lucien Wercollier – Le prisonnier politique (bronze)
 * Andrzej Wróblewski – Execution V

Births

 * February 17 – Peter Kennard, English photomontage artist
 * February 18 – Charlie Waite, English landscape photographer
 * February 27 – Richard P. Cook, English artist
 * March 11 – Griselda Pollock, South African-born feminist visual art historian and theorist
 * April 9 – Stephen Hickman, American illustrator, sculptor and author
 * May 7 – Deborah Butterfield, American sculptor
 * May 12 – Ross Bleckner, American painter
 * July 6 – Tibor Kalman, Hungarian-American graphic designer (d. 1999)
 * August 12 – Glòria Muñoz, Spanish painter
 * August 15 – Richard Deacon, British sculptor
 * August 27 – Istvan Kantor, Hungarian-Canadian performance artist
 * Jim Dolan, American sculptor
 * P. K. Mahanandia, Indian-born portrait artist
 * Lincoln Perry -American painter, muralist, and sculptor

Deaths

 * March 17 – Aleksandra Ekster, painter and designer, Art Deco pioneer (b. 1882)
 * May 3 – Mariano Fortuny, fashion designer (b. 1871)
 * May 15 – Henri Beau, Canadian Impressionist painter (b. 1863)
 * June 21 – Edward Wadsworth, English Vorticist painter (b. 1889)
 * August 8 – Joaquín Torres García, Uruguayan painter (b. 1874)
 * September 7 - José Clemente Orozco, Mexican painter and illustrator (b. 1883)
 * September 25 – Henri Manguin, painter (b. 1874)
 * November 3 – Solomon R. Guggenheim, art collector (b. 1861)
 * November 19 – James Ensor, painter (b. 1860)
 * November 27 – Vincenzo Irolli, Italian painter (b. 1860)
 * December 28 – Emília dos Santos Braga, Portuguese painter (b. 1867)
 * (Herbert Barnard) John Everett, English marine artist (b. 1877)