January – After attending the Casablanca Conference, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and amateur painter Winston Churchill produces his only wartime painting, a view of the Kutubiyya Mosque in Marrakesh, as a gift for President of the United States Franklin D. Roosevelt.
January 5–February 6 – Exhibition by 31 Women is staged at Peggy Guggenheim's The Art of This Century gallery on Manhattan, New York.
February 20 – The painter David Olère is arrested by French police during a round up of Jews in Seine-et-Oise and spends the rest of World War II in Nazi concentration camps.
Spring – The first exhibition of collage in the United States is shown in the Daylight Gallery of Peggy Guggenheim's The Art of This Century gallery on Manhattan.
September – Retreating German troops deliberately destroy most of the collection of the Museo Civico Filangieri in Naples.
September 21 – German-Jewish painter Charlotte Salomon, in hiding in the south of France, is arrested by the Gestapo, ending the autobiographical series of 769 paintings Leben? oder Theater?: Ein Singspiel ("Life? or Theater?: A Song-play").
November 9 – Jackson Pollock's first solo exhibition opens in the Daylight Gallery of Peggy Guggenheim's The Art of This Century gallery on Manhattan.
December 9 – Willem de Kooning marries Elaine Fried in New York City.
Filming in the United States of a version of The Picture of Dorian Gray uses an original work by Ivan Albright as the title picture.
Archibald Prize: William Dobell – Joshua SmithConstantin Brâncuși – The Seal (sculpture, Musée National d'Art Moderne, Paris)Paul Cadmus – The ShowerSalvador Dalí – Geopoliticus Child Watching the Birth of the New ManWilliam Dobell – The Billy BoyM. C. Escher – Reptiles (lithograph)Murray Griffin – Roberts Hospital, ChangiBarbara Hepworth – Oval SculptureEdward Hopper – Hotel LobbyDame Laura Knight – Ruby Loftus Screwing a Breech RingWifredo Lam – The JungleL. S. LowryBritain at PlayGoing To WorkWaiting for the Shop to OpenGeorge Platt Lynes – Marsden Hartley (photograph)Piet Mondrian – Broadway Boogie-WoogiePaul Nash – Landscape of the Vernal EquinoxFelix Nussbaum – Self-portrait with Jewish identity cardArthur Pan – Winston ChurchillMervyn PeakeThe Evolution of the Cathode Ray (Radiolocation) TubeGlass-blowers 'Gathering' from the FurnaceJackson Pollock – Mural (for Peggy Guggenheim)Norman Rockwell – Four Freedoms (paintings)Walter Russell – Four Freedoms MonumentXul Solar – FiordoDorothea Tanning – Eine kleine NachtmusikStanley Warren – Changi MuralsU Wisara Monument (Rangoon)Andrew Wyeth – Public SaleJanuary 8 – Sighsten Herrgård, Swedish fashion designer (d.1989)January 20 – Jessica Rawson, English art historianFebruary 22 – Dragoš Kalajić, Serbian modern painter (d. 2005)April 24 – Jüri Kerem, Estonian portraitistMay 8 – James Turrell, American installation artistJune 22 – Gordon Matta-Clark, American situationist, site-specific artist and performance artist (d.1978)July 15 – Michael Asher, American conceptual artist and installation artist (d. 2012)July 29 – Martha Rosler, American video, photo-text, installation and performance artistAugust 30 – Robert Crumb, American cartoonistSeptember 5 – Jerry Wilkerson, American painter (d. 2007)September 17 – Gilbert (Proesch), Italian-born artist partnering with George (Passmore)November 11 – Dave Cockrum, American comic book artist (d. 2006)January 13Xavier Martínez, Mexican-born American painter (b. 1869)Sophie Taeuber-Arp, Swiss geometric abstract painter, sculptor and dancer (accidental carbon monoxide poisoning) (born 1889)May 25 – Percy Shakespeare, English painter (on active service) (b. 1906)June 28 – Pietro Porcelli, Italian-born Australian sculptor (b. 1872)c. July 11 – Friedrich Adler, German-Jewish designer (in Auschwitz concentration camp) (b. 1878)August 7 – Sarah Purser, Irish portrait painter and stained-glass maker (b. 1848)August 9 – Chaim Soutine, Belarusian Jewish-born French painter (b. 1893)September 2 – Marsden Hartley, American Modernist painter (b. 1877)c. October 10 – Charlotte Salomon, German-Jewish painter (in Auschwitz concentration camp) (b. 1917)October 19 – Camille Claudel, French sculptor and graphic artist (b. 1864)
