January 21 – O. Winston Link starts a 5-year personal project to document steam operations on the Norfolk and Western Railway in the United States using flash photography.
March – A Photographer's Gallery established in New York City by Roy DeCarava.
May 17 – Clark Art Institute opens to the public in Williamstown, Massachusetts.
June 1 – Première of Billy Wilder's film of The Seven Year Itch featuring an iconic scene of Marilyn Monroe standing on a New York City Subway grating as her white dress (created by Travilla) is blown above her knees.
June 27 – Sir Jacob Epstein marries Kathleen Garman.
December - Iris Clert Gallery opens in the rue des Beaux-Arts, Paris, and its owner, Iris Clert, first meets Yves Klein.
date unknown
Marcel Duchamp becomes a citizen of the United States.
Pablo Picasso finishes painting his Les Femmes d'Alger ("The Women of Algiers") series (inspired by Delacroix), concluding with "Version O" which in 2015 will sell at a world record price for a painting at auction.
British studio potter Alan Caiger-Smith establishes Aldermaston Pottery in England.
Enrique Tabara obtains an Ecuadorian government scholarship to study in Spain.
Archibald Prize: Ivor Hele – Robert Campbell Esq.
Michael Andrews – Four People Sunbathing (Arts Council England)
Balthus
Girls on the Couch
Nude Before a Mirror
John Brack
Collins St., 5 pm
The Car
Edward Burra – Izzy Orts
Lucien Clergue – Trio des Saltimbanques (photograph)
Carroll Cloar – My Father Was Big as a Tree
Pompeo Coppini – George Washington (bronze, University of Texas at Austin)
Salvador Dalí – The Sacrament of the Last Supper (National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.)
Sir Jacob Epstein – Christ in Majesty (sculpture for Llandaff Cathedral)
M. C. Escher – lithographs
Compass Rose (Order and Chaos II)
Convex and Concave
Three Worlds
Alberto Giacometti
Diego (approximate date)
Grande tête mince
Oswaldo Guayasamín – El ataúd blanco
Edward Hopper – South Carolina Morning
Jasper Johns
Flag
White Flag
Willem de Kooning – Composition
Lee Krasner – Color Totem
L. S. Lowry (Tate collection)
Industrial Landscape
A Young Man
René Magritte – The Mysteries of the Horizon
Henry Moore
Upright Motive No. 1: Glenkiln Cross
Wall Relief no. 1 (carved brick, Bouwcentrum, Rotterdam)
Sidney Nolan – Ned Kelly
Pablo Picasso – Don Quixote (sketch for Les Lettres Françaises, August)
Robert Rauschenberg – Bantam
Mark Rothko – Violet Center
Charles Sheeler – The Web
Hedda Sterne – New York, N.Y., 1955
January – The Family of Man, a photography exhibition curated by Edward Steichen, opens at the Museum of Modern Art, New York.
October – First public exhibition of Yves Klein's monochrome oil paintings, at Club des Solitaires, Paris.
November 3–December 18 – Stanley Spencer: a Retrospective Exhibition at the Tate Gallery, London.
Le Mouvement at Galerie Denise René, Paris, popularizing kinetic art.
Exhibition by London members of Groupe Espace, organized by Paule Vézelay at the Royal Festival Hall.
January 21 – Jeff Koons, American "kitsch" artist
February 2 – Madi Phala, South African artist (d. 2007)
March 10 – Mark Landis, American painter and art forger
March 24 – Beverly K. Effinger, American painter
July 29 – Dave Stevens, American illustrator and comics artist (d. 2008)
November 15 – Sergey Voychenko, Belarusian artist and designer (d. 2004)
undated
Miroslav Grčev, Macedonian architect and graphic designer
Jaume Plensa, Catalan sculptor
Alexander Sokolov, sculptor working in Spain
January 1 – Maria Bal, Polish model (b. 1879)
January 7 – Lamorna Birch, English painter (b. 1869)
February 11 – Olga Khokhlova, Russian-born ballet dancer and estranged wife of Picasso (b. 1891)
March 13 – Evie Hone, Irish painter and stained glass artist (b. 1894)
March 16 – Nicolas de Staël, Russian-born French impasto painter (b. 1914)
May 3 – Rudolf Schlichter, German painter (b. 1890)
May 10 – John Radecki, Polish-born Australian stained glass artist (b. 1865)
May 11 – Bradley Walker Tomlin, American painter (b. 1899)
May 23 – Auguste Chabaud, French painter (b. 1882)
June 1 – Antonio Dattilo Rubbo, Italian-born Australian painter and art teacher (b. 1870)
June 29 – Max Pechstein, German Expressionist artist (b. 1881)
August 17 – Fernand Léger, French artist (b. 1881)
September 19 – Carl Milles, Swedish sculptor (b. 1875)
September 27 – Leslie Garland Bolling, African American sculptor (b. 1898)
November 5 – Maurice Utrillo, French painter (b. 1883)
November 29 – Rene Paul Chambellan, American sculptor (b. 1893)
December 19 – Alexander Lubimov, Russian artist (b. 1879)
December 28 – Olive Edis, English photographer (b. 1876)
1955 in art Wikipedia (Text) CC BY-SA
