1969 in art

Events from the year 1969 in art.

Events

 * January 9 – In Washington, D.C., the Smithsonian Institution displays the art of Winslow Homer for 6 weeks.
 * February 2 – Ten paintings are defaced in New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art.
 * August 8 – Iain Macmillan photographs the cover picture for The Beatles' album Abbey Road in London.
 * October 5 – Monty Python's Flying Circus is broadcast for the first time on BBC Television, with Terry Gilliam's animations.
 * October 18 – Caravaggio's Nativity with St. Francis and St. Lawrence (c.1609) is stolen from its frame in the Oratory of Saint Lawrence in Palermo, Sicily; it has not been recovered as of 2020.
 * November 19 – The Apollo 12 lunar module lands on the Moon with astronaut and artist Alan Bean; American artist Forrest "Frosty" Myers claims to have smuggled the art piece Moon Museum onto a leg of the module which will remain on the surface.
 * c. December – The music and performance art collective COUM Transmissions is formed in England by Genesis P-Orridge.
 * Late – Andy Warhol, John Wilcock, and Gerard Malanga co-found the magazine Interview.
 * Opening of the Oakland Museum of California, designed by Kevin Roche.
 * Lyrical Abstraction exhibition debuts at the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum marking a significant return to expressivity in American abstract painting. For two years the exhibition travels throughout the U.S. including to the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City.

Awards

 * Archibald Prize: Ray Crooke – George Johnston
 * John Moores Painting Prize - Richard Hamilton and Mary Martin for "Toaster" and "Cross" (respectively)

Works

 * Kenojuak Ashevak – The Owl
 * Michael Ayrton – The Arkville Minotaur
 * Francis Bacon – Three Studies of Lucian Freud
 * Thomas Bass – Australian Seal (bronze, Washington, D.C.)
 * Edward Bawden – Victoria tile motif on London Underground's Victoria line
 * Fernando Botero - Protestant Family
 * Alexander Calder – La Grande Vitesse (sculpture)
 * Christo and Jeanne Claude - "Wrapped Coast" in Little Bay, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
 * Mai Dantsig – Partisan Ballad
 * Helen Frankenthaler – Slice of Stone Itself
 * Frank Frazetta – Egyptian Queen
 * Milton Glaser - Speed City
 * Anna Hyatt Huntington - Equestrian statue of Israel Putnam at Putnam Memorial State Park in Redding, Connecticut (dedicated)
 * Allen Jones – Hatstand, Table and Chair (sculptures)
 * Ronnie Landfield – Diamond Lake
 * André Lufwa - "Batteur de tam-tam"
 * Joan Mitchell - Sans Neige
 * Kanda Nissho – Snow Farm
 * Pablo Picasso- The Kiss
 * Enzo Plazzotta – Baigneuse
 * Jean-Paul Riopelle – La Joute (public sculptural installation, Montreal)
 * Will Roberts – Redberth Village, Pembrokeshire
 * Alexander Semionov – Leningrad in the Morning
 * Victor Teterin – Sredne-Podjacheskaya Street in Leningrad
 * Nikolai Timkov – Russian Winter
 * Hans Unger – Oxford Circus and Green Park tile motifs on London Underground's Victoria line

Exhibitions

 * December 30 until March 1, 1970 - Spaces at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City (Dan Flavin, Larry Bell, Robert Morris, Franz Erhard Walther, and Pulsa).

Births

 * January 5 – Marilyn Manson, American rock musician and painter
 * February 7 – Andrew Micallef, Maltese painter and musician
 * July 11 – Abigail McLellan, British painter (d. 2009)
 * October 5 – Chantal Joffe, English painter
 * November 26 – Kara Walker, African American artist
 * date unknown
 * Boushra Almutawakel, Yemeni photographer
 * Steven Claydon, English sculptor, installation artist and musician
 * Invader, French urban artist
 * Patricia Martín, Mexican curator

Deaths

 * January 20 – Luigi Del Bianco, Italian-born American sculptor (b. 1892)
 * January 29 – Edward Marshall Boehm, American Expressionist sculptor (b. 1913)
 * March 14 – Ben Shahn, Lithuanian-born American painter and photographer (b. 1898)
 * March 17 – Daniel Vázquez Díaz, Spanish painter (b. 1882)
 * May 11 – T. K. Padmini, Keralan feminist painter (b. 1940; d. in childbirth)
 * June 12 – Aleksandr Deyneka, Russian painter and sculptor (b. 1899)
 * July 5 – Walter Gropius, German-born architect (b. 1883)
 * July 9 – Emerik Feješ, Hungarian and Serbian painter (b. 1904)
 * July 25 – Otto Dix, German painter and printmaker (b. 1891)
 * August – Doris Brabham Hatt, English modernist painter (b. 1890)
 * September 15 – Edith Barry, American sculptor, painter, illustrator and designer (b. 1883)
 * November 21 – Norman Lindsay, Australian sculptor and cartoonist (born 1879)