1950 in art

Events from the year 1950 in art.

Events

 * Austrian painter Arnulf Rainer founds the Hundsgruppe ("dog pack") with Arik Brauer, Ernst Fuchs and Josef Mikl.
 * Paint by number kits introduced by Max S. Klein, an engineer and owner of the Palmer Paint Company of Detroit, and Dan Robbins.
 * Ernst Gombrich's The Story of Art is published by Phaidon Press.

Awards

 * Archibald Prize: William Dargie – Sir Leslie McConnan
 * Audubon Artists Gold Medal – Richmond Barthé

Works

 * Jean Arp – Evocation of a Form: Human, Lunar, Spectral (model for bronze)
 * Francis Bacon – Fragment of a Crucifixion
 * Max Beckmann – Falling Man
 * Marc Chagall – La Mariée
 * Salvador Dalí – The Madonna of Port Lligat (second version, Fukuoka Art Museum)
 * Max Desfor – Flight of Refugees Across Wrecked Bridge in Korea (photograph)
 * Robert Doisneau – Le baiser de l'hôtel de ville (The Kiss) (photograph)
 * Alberto Giacometti – The Chariot
 * E. Chambré Hardman – The Birth of the Ark Royal (photograph)
 * Maruki Iri and Maruki Toshi – Ghosts, Fire and Water (Yūrei, Hi and Mizu), first of The Hiroshima Panels (原爆の図, Genbaku no zu)
 * Oskar Kokoschka – The Myth of Prometheus (triptych)
 * L. S. Lowry – The Pond
 * Henri Matisse – Beasts of the Sea (paper collage)
 * Joan Mitchell - Figure and the City'
 * Jackson Pollock – Autumn Rhythm (Number 30)
 * William Scott – Bowl, Eggs and Lemons
 * Vladimir Tretchikoff – Chinese Girl, popularly known as "The Green Lady"
 * Keith Vaughan – Theseus and the Minotaur (Tate Britain)

Births

 * April 22 – Thierry Zéno, Belgian filmmaker (d. 2017)
 * June 24 – Bob Carlos Clarke, Irish photographer (d. 2006)
 * July 28 – Neville Garrick, Jamaican graphic artist and photographer (d. 2023)
 * July 29 – Jenny Holzer, American neo-conceptual artist
 * August 30
 * Konrad Bernheimer, Venezuelan-born German art dealer and collector
 * Antony Gormley, English sculptor
 * September 4 – Kobe (Jacques Saelens), Belgian visual artist and sculptor
 * November 10 – Jonathan Janson, American painter and art historian
 * December 11 – Aleksandr Tatarskiy, Russian animator, artist and film director (d. 2007)
 * David Ruben Piqtoukun, Canadian Inuit sculptor

Deaths

 * February 12 – Boris Vladimirski, Soviet painter of the Socialist Realism school (b. 1878)
 * February 15 – Albert Herter, American painter (b. 1871)
 * April 5 – Hiroshi Yoshida, Japanese painter and woodblock printmaker (b. 1876)
 * September 26 – Pierre Roy, French-born painter, illustrator and designer (b. 1880)
 * December 7 – Wojciech Weiss, Polish painter and draughtsman (b. 1875)
 * December 28 – Max Beckmann, German painter (b. 1884)
 * James Sleator, Irish painter (b. 1889)