1955 in art

Events

• 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.
• January 26 – A trial establishes that the recently "restored" "medieval" frescoes in St. Mary's Church, Lübeck, were in fact newly painted by Lothar Malskat and an associate.
• March – A Photographer's Gallery is established in New York City by Roy DeCarava.
• May 17 – The 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 is blown above her knees.
• June 27 – Sir Jacob Epstein marries Kathleen Garman.
• December - Iris Clert Gallery opens in the :fr:Rue des Beaux-Arts|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 series, concluding with ":File:Les femmes d’Alger, Picasso, version O.jpg|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.

  Awards

• Archibald Prize: Ivor Hele – Robert Campbell Esq.

  Works

• Michael Andrews – '
• Pietro Annigoni – Portrait of Elizabeth II
• Balthus
• * Girls on the Couch
• * '
• John Brack
• * Collins St., 5 pm
• * The Car
• Edward Burra – '
• Lucien Clergue – Trio des Saltimbanques
• Carroll Cloar – My Father Was Big as a Tree
• Pompeo Coppini – Statue of George Washington
• Salvador Dalí – The Sacrament of the Last Supper
• Sir Jacob Epstein – :File:Christ in Majesty, Llandaff Cathedral.jpg|Christ in Majesty
• M. C. Escher – lithographs
• * Compass Rose
• * Convex and Concave
• * Three Worlds
• Alberto Giacometti
• * Diego
• * Grande tête mince
• Oswaldo Guayasamín – '
• Edward Hopper – '
• Jasper Johns
• * Flag
• * White Flag
• Willem de Kooning
• * '
• * Woman as Landscape
• * Woman-Ochre
• Lee Krasner – Color Totem
• L. S. Lowry
• * '
• * '
• René Magritte – The Mysteries of the Horizon
• Joan Mitchell — "Café"
• Henry Moore
• * '
• * :File:Rotterdam kunstwerk Wall Relief no.1.jpg|Wall Relief no. 1
• Sidney Nolan – '
• Pablo Picasso – Don Quixote
• Robert Rauschenberg – '
• Mark Rothko – Violet Center
• Charles Sheeler – '
• Hedda Sterne – New York, N.Y., 1955

  Exhibitions

• 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.

  Births

• January 15 – Andreas Gursky, German large format photographer
• January 21 – Jeff Koons, American "kitsch" artist
• February 2 – Madi Phala, South African artist
• 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
• August 2 – PHASE 2, American graffiti artist
• November 15 – Sergey Voychenko, Belarusian artist and designer
• undated
• * Manasie Akpaliapik, Canadian Inuit sculptor
• * Mariana Cook, American portrait photographer
• * Miroslav Grčev, Macedonian architect and graphic designer
• * Jaume Plensa, Catalan sculptor
• * Rebecca Salter, English printmaker and multimedia abstract artist, President of the Royal Academy
• * Alexander Sokolov, sculptor working in Spain

  Deaths

• January 1 – Maria Bal, Polish model
• January 7 – Lamorna Birch, English painter
• February 11 – Olga Khokhlova, Russian-born ballet dancer and estranged wife of Picasso
• March 13 – Evie Hone, Irish painter and stained glass artist
• March 16 – Nicolas de Staël, Russian-born French impasto painter
• May 3 – Rudolf Schlichter, German painter
• May 10 – John Radecki, Polish-born Australian stained glass artist
• May 11 – Bradley Walker Tomlin, American painter
• May 23 – Auguste Chabaud, French painter
• June 1 – Antonio Dattilo Rubbo, Italian-born Australian painter and art teacher
• June 29 – Max Pechstein, German Expressionist artist
• August 17 – Fernand Léger, French artist
• September 19 – Carl Milles, Swedish sculptor
• September 27 – Leslie Garland Bolling, African American sculptor
• November 5 – Maurice Utrillo, French painter
• November 29 – Rene Paul Chambellan, American sculptor
• December 19 – Alexander Lubimov, Russian artist
• December 28 – Olive Edis, English photographer