1949 in art

Events

• Formation of Penwith Society of Arts in St Ives, Cornwall.
• Philadelphia Artists Equity is established in Pennsylvania, United States, to protect artists’ rights and improve working and economic conditions for fine artists.
• Young Contemporaries exhibition, initiated by Carel Weight for the British Society of Artists Galleries, establishes the New Contemporaries series.
• David Jones begins a 5-year sequence of watercolours of flowers in glasses.
• Yves Klein paints his first monochromes, while apprenticed to a picture-frame maker in London.

  Awards

• Archibald Prize: Arthur Murch – Bonar Dunlop

  Works

• Francis Bacon – Head III, Head IV, Head V, Head VI
• Brenda Chamberlain – The Fisherman's Return
• Salvador Dalí
• * Leda Atomica
• * The Madonna of Port Lligat
• Sir William Reid Dick – :File:Godiva statue.jpg|Lady Godiva
• Sir Russell Drysdale – West Wyalong
• Frida Kahlo
• * Diego and I
• * The Love Embrace of the Universe, the Earth, Myself, Diego, and Señor Xolotl
• Tadeusz Kantor – Man with Umbrella
• L. S. Lowry
• * '
• * The Football Match
• * The Spire
• Henry Moore – Family Group
• Robert Motherwell – Five in the Afternoon
• Barnett Newman – Abraham
• William Scott
• * Frying Pan and Eggs
• * Still Life with Candlestick
• Graham Sutherland – '
• Vladimir Tretchikoff – The Dying Swan
• Boris Vladimirski – Roses for Stalin
• Lucien Wercollier – Le prisonnier politique

  Births

• February 17 – Peter Kennard, English photomontage artist
• March 11 – Griselda Pollock, South African-born feminist visual art historian and theorist
• April 9 – Stephen Hickman, American illustrator, sculptor and author
• May 7 – Deborah Butterfield, American sculptor
• May 12 – Ross Bleckner, American painter
• July 6 – Tibor Kalman, Hungarian-American graphic designer
• August 12 – Glòria Muñoz, Spanish painter
• August 15 – Richard Deacon, British sculptor
• August 27 – Istvan Kantor, Hungarian-Canadian performance artist
• Jim Dolan, American sculptor
• P. K. Mahanandia, Indian-born portrait artist
• Charlie Waite, English landscape photographer

  Deaths

• March 17 – Aleksandra Ekster, painter and designer, Art Deco pioneer
• May 3 – Mariano Fortuny, fashion designer
• May 15 – Henri Beau, Canadian Impressionist painter
• June 21 – Edward Wadsworth, English Vorticist painter
• August 8 – Joaquín Torres García, Uruguayan painter
• September 7 - José Clemente Orozco, Mexican painter and illustrator
• September 25 – Henri Manguin, painter
• November 3 – Solomon R. Guggenheim, art collector
• November 19 – James Ensor, painter
• John Everett, English marine artist