1956 in art

Events from the year 1956 in art.

Events

 * March 1 – Replica statue of the Discus Thrower dedicated in Washington, D.C., as a gift from the Italian government to commemorate the return of looted art objects after World War II.
 * March – 56 Group founded, to promote modernist art in Wales. Subsequently renamed 56 Group Wales.
 * September 17 – Release in the United States of the biographical film Lust for Life with Kirk Douglas portraying Vincent van Gogh and Anthony Quinn as Paul Gauguin.
 * Le mystère Picasso, a French documentary film, shows Pablo Picasso in the act of creating paintings for the camera (which he subsequently destroys so that they will exist only on film).
 * William Klein publishes his photo essay New York, 1954–55.
 * Shanghai Art Museum, the predecessor of the China Art Museum, opens.
 * English curator Jim Ede settles at Kettle's Yard, Cambridge, England.
 * English painter Edward Seago joins a tour of the Antarctic.
 * Two attacks are made on Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa in the Louvre, Paris.

Awards

 * Archibald Prize: William Dargie – Mr Albert Namatjira
 * Kate Greenaway Medal – Edward Ardizzone for Tim All Alone

Films

 * Lust for Life

Works

 * Laurence Bradshaw – Monument to Karl Marx at Highgate Cemetery, London (including bronze bust)
 * Alexander Calder – Red Mobile
 * Frank Cadogan Cowper – The Golden Bowl
 * Salvador Dalí – Living Still Life
 * M. C. Escher – Print Gallery (lithograph)
 * Max Ernst – L’oiseau Rose
 * Helen Frankenthaler – Eden
 * Richard Hamilton – Just What Is It that Makes Today's Homes So Different, So Appealing? (collage)
 * Rudolf Hausner – The Ark of Odysseus
 * Eduardo Kingman – La Lavendera
 * Roy Lichtenstein – Ten Dollar Bill (lithograph)
 * O. Winston Link - Hotshot Eastbound (black-and-white photograph)
 * L. S. Lowry – The Floating Bridge
 * Joan Mitchell
 * Café
 * Hemlock
 * Candido Portinari – Self-portrait
 * Norman Rockwell – The Scoutmaster
 * Kay Sage – Le Passage
 * Alexander Nikolayevich Samokhvalov – Cafe Gurzuf
 * Charles Sheeler – On a Shaker Theme
 * David Wynne – Sir Thomas Beecham (bronzes)

Exhibitions

 * August 9–September 9 – This Is Tomorrow, Whitechapel Art Gallery, London, featuring principally the interdisciplinary ICA Independent Group, including early examples of Pop Art.

Births

 * January 2 – Lynda Barry, American cartoonist
 * January 19 – Junpei Satoh, Japanese Western-style painter
 * February 24 – Fiona Graham-Mackay, née Bain, British portrait painter
 * May 25 – Andrea Pazienza, Italian comics artist (d. 1988)
 * date unknown
 * Lee Bae, South Korean visual artist
 * Emma Biggs, English mosaicist
 * Cornelia Parker, English sculptor and installation artist
 * Veronica Ryan, Montserrat-born British sculptor
 * Mackenzie Thorpe, English painter and sculptor

Deaths

 * January 13 – Lyonel Feininger, German American painter and cartoonist (b. 1871)
 * April 23 – Cecile Walton, Scottish painter, illustrator and sculptor (b. 1891)
 * May 3 – Peter Watson, English arts benefactor (murdered) (b. 1908)
 * June 8 – Marie Laurencin, French painter and engraver (b. 1883)
 * June 11 - Frank Brangwyn, Welsh painter (b. 1867)
 * July 26 – Louis Raemaekers, Dutch painter and cartoonist (b. 1869)
 * August 7 – LeMoine FitzGerald, Canadian painter (b. 1890)
 * August 11 – Jackson Pollock, American painter (b. 1912)
 * August 16 – Theodor Pallady, Romanian painter (b. 1871)
 * November 3 – Jean Metzinger, French painter (b. 1883)
 * December 16 – Nina Hamnett, British painter, model and designer (b. 1890)
 * Mohamed Nagy, Egyptian painter (b. 1888)