1978 in art

Events from the year 1978 in art.

Events

 * 27 June – Stitching the Standard by Edmund Leighton is sold at Sotheby's in Belgravia to a private collector.

Awards

 * Archibald Prize: Brett Whiteley – Art, Life and the other thing
 * John Moores Painting Prize - Noel Forster for "A painting in six stages with a silk triangle"

Works

 * Alicia Austin – Alicia Austin's Age of Dreams
 * Zdzisław Beksiński – AA78
 * Christo and Jeanne Claude - "Wrapped Walk Ways" in Loose Park in Kansas City, Missouri
 * Dan Flavin – untitled (to the real Dan Hill)
 * Helen Frankenthaler – Cleveland Symphony Orchestra
 * David Gentleman – "Eleanor cross" mural for Charing Cross tube station (London)
 * Jack Goldstein – The Jump
 * Michael Heizer – Isolated Mass/Circumflex (Number 2) (land art, Houston, Texas)
 * Bryan Hunt – Big Twist (bronze, Houston, Texas)
 * Nabil Kanso – Hiroshima Nagasaki One-Minute
 * Liz Leyh – Concrete Cows (Milton Keynes)
 * Odd Nerdrum – The Murder of Andreas Baader
 * Dennis Oppenheim – Cobalt Vectors – An Invasion
 * Mikhail Savitsky – Partisan Madonna of Minsk

Births

 * 19 September – Russell Ouellett, American artist and therapist.

Deaths

 * 1 January – Don Freeman, American author, painter and illustrator (b. 1908)
 * 10 January – Gluck, born Hannah Gluckstein, English painter (b. 1895)
 * 19 January – Živko Stojsavljević, Serbian painter (b. 1900).
 * 24 February – Alma Thomas, African American abstract expressionist painter (b. 1891).
 * 13 April – Jack Chambers, Canadian artist and filmmaker (b. 1931).
 * 8 May – Duncan Grant, Scottish painter (b. 1885).
 * 31 May – Hannah Höch, German Dada photomontage artist (b. 1889).
 * 13 July
 * Thomas B. Hess, American art editor, writer, and curator (b. 1920)
 * Oliver Messel, English-born stage designer (b. 1904).
 * 5 August – Victor Hasselblad, Swedish inventor and photographer (b. 1889).
 * 14 August – Nicolas Bentley, British author and illustrator (b. 1907).
 * 27 August – Gordon Matta-Clark, American artist (b. 1943).
 * 6 November – Harry Bertoia, Italian-born American artist and designer (b. 1915).
 * 8 November – Norman Rockwell, American painter and illustrator (b. 1894).
 * 20 November – Giorgio de Chirico, Greek-Italian painter (b. 1888).
 * 30 November - Otto Kallir, Austrian -American art historian, author, publisher, and gallerist (b. 1894).

Full date unknown

 * Gabriel Hayes, Irish sculptor and coin designer (b.1909).
 * Leo Michelson, Latvian-American painter and sculptor (b.1887).