June 10 – National Museum of Western Art established in Tokyo.
André Breton asks Salvador Dalí, Joan Miró, Enrique Tábara and Eugenio Granell to represent Spain by exhibiting some of their works in the Homage to Surrealism Exhibition celebrating the fortieth anniversary of Surrealism.
Archibald Prize: William Dobell – Dr Edward MacMahon
Knighthood (United Kingdom): Stanley Spencer
Milton Avery – Tangerine Moon and Wine Dark Sea
Salvador Dalí – The Discovery of America by Christopher Columbus
Ivan Generalić – The Deer Wedding
Allan Gwynne-Jones – Lord Beveridge in his 80th year
Barbara Hepworth – Figure (Archaean) (bronze, 7 casts)
Asger Jorn – Solvejg
Franz Kline – Orange and Black Wall
Lee Krasner – Cool White
Peter Lanyon – Lost Mine
Georg J. Lober – George M. Cohan (bronze)
Pablo Picasso – Le déjeuner sur l'herbe
Nikolai Pozdneev – Spring Day
Ad Reinhardt – Abstract Painting Diptych
Stanley Spencer – Self-portrait
John Golding – Cubism: a history and an analysis, 1907-1914
June 2 – Rineke Dijkstra, Dutch photographer
Willie Doherty, Northern Irish visual artist
Caio Fonseca, American painter
Peter Lik, Australian-born landscape photographer
January 29 – Winifred Brunton, South African painter and illustrator (born 1880)
February 26 – Gabrielle Renard, French artist's model (born 1878)
February 28 – Beatrix Farrand, American landscape architect (born 1872)
April 9 – Frank Lloyd Wright, American architectural pioneer (born 1867)
May 3 – Renato Birolli, Italian painter (born 1905)
June 8 – Pietro Canonica, Italian sculptor (born 1869)
July 6 – George Grosz, German painter, draftsman and caricaturist (born 1893)
July 17 – Sir Alfred Munnings, English equine painter (born 1878)
August 5 – Frank Godwin, American illustrator (born 1889)
August 19 – Sir Jacob Epstein, American-born British sculptor (born 1880)
August 20 – Alfred Kubin, Austrian illustrator (born 1877)
August 27 – Tom Purvis, English poster artist (born 1888).
September 9
Merric Boyd, Australian painter, sculptor and ceramic artist (born 1888)
Cathleen Mann, English portrait painter and costume designer (born 1896)
September 13 – Adrian (Greenberg), Hollywood costume designer (born 1903)
September 18
Benjamin Péret, French poet, Dadaist and editor of La Révolution surréaliste (born 1899)
Adolf Ziegler, German painter and politician (born 1892)
October 6 – Bernard Berenson, Lithuanian American art historian (born 1865)
November 15 – Charles Jones, English gardener and photographer (born 1866)
November 18 – Arkady Shaikhet, Soviet documentary photographer (born 1898)
November 24 – Stepan Erzia, Mordvin sculptor (born 1876)
December 9 – Gene Carr, American cartoonist (born 1881)
December 14
Lizzy Ansingh, Dutch painter (born 1875)
Sir Stanley Spencer, English painter (born 1891)
date unknown – Matthew Smith, English painter (born 1879)
1959 in art Wikipedia (Text) CC BY-SA
