Events from the year 1948 in art.
Contents
Events
Summer – The art exhibitions at the Venice Biennale are revived, introducing American abstract expressionism to Europe and part of the Peggy Guggenheim Collection to Venice.
November 8 – COBRA (avant-garde movement) is formed by Karel Appel, Constant, Corneille, Christian Dotremont, Asger Jorn and Joseph Noiret.
Georges Braque begins work on his Ateliers.
The Colony Room Club, a private members' drinking club at 41 Dean Street, Soho, London, is founded and presided over by Muriel Belcher; painter Francis Bacon becomes a member the day after it opens, establishing it as a centre for London's alcoholic artistic elite.
Cadillac introduce the car tailfin, to Frank Hershey's design authorized by Harley Earl.
Awards
Archibald Prize: William Dobell – Margaret Olley
Works
Paintings
Victor Brauner – Meeting with Myself at the four Cats of the World
Otto Dix – Ecce homo with self-likeness behind barbed wire
Russell Drysdale – The cricketers
Rudolf Hausner – It's Me!
Isabel Lambert – Three Fish[2]
Henri Matisse – The Plum Blossoms
Barnett Newman – Onement I
Sidney Nolan – The Abandoned Mine
Jackson Pollock – No. 5, 1948
Anne Redpath – Window in Menton
Constance Stokes – Girl in Red Tights (approx. date)
Rufino Tamayo – Cazadores de mariposas
Andrew Wyeth
Christina's World
McVey's Barn
Karl
Sculpture
Wäinö Aaltonen – Kun ystävyyssuhteet solmitaan
Joseph Cornell – Untitled (Cockatoo and Corks)
Jacob Epstein – Lazarus
Marino Marini – The Angel of the City
Gerda Sprinchorn – Linnéstaty (modeled 1907)
Iglica
Thomas W. Talbot Monument
Graphic works
M. C. Escher
Dewdrop (mezzotint)
Drawing Hands (lithograph)
Stars (wood engraving)
Births
January 24 – Machiko Satonaka, Japanese manga artist
March 9 – Eric Fischl, American painter
March 14 – James Nachtwey, American photojournalist
April 14 – Berry Berenson, American model and photographer (d. 2001)
June 30 – Wolf Erlbruch, German children's book illustrator and writer
July 7 – Alison Wilding, English sculptor and academic
September 20 – Adrian Piper, American conceptual artist
October 2 – Donna Karan, American fashion designer
October 8 – Gottfried Helnwein, Austrian fine artist, photographer, installation and performance artist
November 1 – Bill Woodrow, British sculptor
November 18 – Ana Mendieta, Cuban American performance artist (d. 1985)
December 18 – Mimmo Paladino, Italian sculptor, painter and printmaker
December 26 – Lin Onus, Scottish-Aboriginal Koori artist (d. 1996)
Full date unknown
Jonathan Lasker, American abstract painter
Christopher Makos, American photographer
Marilyn Minter, American painter and photographer
Roberta Smith, American art critic (The New York Times)
Andrew Stevovich, Austrian-born American painter
Deaths
January 8 – Kurt Schwitters, German painter, collagist and poet (b. 1887)
January 21 – Ambrosia Tønnesen, Norwegian sculptor (b. 1859)
February 23 – Fidus, German illustrator, painter and publisher (b. 1868)
March 23 – Yevgeniy Abalakov, Soviet sculptor and mountaineer (b. 1907)
March 24 – Sigrid Hjertén, Swedish modernist painter (b. 1885)
July 21 – Arshile Gorky, Armenian American painter (b. 1904)
August – Feliu Elias, Spanish caricaturist and painter (b. 1878)
September 9 – Ignacy Pieńkowski, Polish painter (b. 1877)
September 22 – Felicjan Kowarski, Polish painter and sculptor (b. 1885)
October 17 – Royal Cortissoz, American art critic (b. 1869)
November 4 – Shinzō Fukuhara, Japanese photographer (b. 1883)
December 28 – Hakob Gyurjian, Armenian sculptor (b. 1890)
December 30 – George Ault, American Precisionist painter (b. 1891)
Date unknown – Hector Hyppolite, Haitian painter (b. 1894)