2004 in art

Events

• April – A Belgian activist group cuts off the left hand of a bronze Congolese figure in a :File:Beach of Oostende 08.jpg|monument to Leopold II of Belgium in Ostend as a protest against colonial atrocities.
• 24 May – A fire in the Momart storage warehouse destroys major works by Helen Chadwick, Tracey Emin, Patrick Heron, Damien Hirst and other British artists.
• 18 July – The subterranean Chichu Art Museum on the Japanese island of Naoshima, designed by Tadao Ando, opens.

  Works

• David Backhouse – Animals in War Memorial
• Banksy – Di-faced Tenner
• Bruce Beasley – Encounter
• Lucien Freud - "The Brigadier"
• Rachel Joynt – :File:Noahs Egg by Rachel Joynt.jpg|Noah's Egg
• Liz Magor – LightShed
• Cornelia Parker – Perpetual Canon
• Paula Rego – The Cake Woman
• Donald Wilson – Holon
• Statue of Mahatma Gandhi
• Artworks at Millennium Park in Chicago, United States:
• *Anish Kapoor – Cloud Gate
• *Jaume Plensa – Crown Fountain

  Awards

• Archibald Prize – Craig Ruddy, David Gulpilil, two worlds
• Artes Mundi Prize - Xu Bing
• Beck's Futures – Saskia Olde Wolbers
• Hugo Boss Prize- Rirkrit Tiravanija
• Caldecott Medal for children's book illustration – Mordicai Gerstein, The Man Who Walked Between the Towers
• En Foco's New Works Photography Award – Manuel Rivera-Ortiz
• John Moores Painting Prize - Alexis Harding - "Slump/Fear "
• Wynne prize – George Tjungurrayi, Untitled

  Exhibitions

• Edward Delaney retrospective – Royal Hibernian Academy
• Erich Heckel – His Work in the 1920s, Brücke Museum, Berlin
• Paul Henry at the National Gallery of Ireland
• Edward Hopper at the Tate Gallery, London
• "Drawings of Jim Dine" at the National Gallery of Art, Washington

  Films

• Modigliani

  Deaths

January to March

• 4 January – Jeff Nuttall, English poet, publisher, actor, painter and sculptor
• 9 January – Nissim Ezekiel, Indian poet, playwright and art critic
• 7 February – Norman Thelwell, English cartoonist
• 4 March – Stephen Sprouse, American fashion designer and artist
• 12 March - Milton Resnick, American Painter
• 13 March – René Laloux, French animator and film director

  April to June

• 1 April – Enrique Grau, Colombian painter and sculptor
• 7 April – Wolfgang Mattheuer, German painter and sculptor
• 25 April – Jacques Rouxel, French animator.
• 12 May – Syd Hoff, American children’s book author and cartoonist
• 28 May – Jean-Philippe Charbonnier, French photographer
• 11 June – Egon von Fürstenberg, Swiss fashion designer
• 15 June – Lothar Fischer, German sculptor

  July to September

• 2 July – John Cullen Murphy, American comics artist
• 19 July – Sylvia Daoust, Canadian sculptor
• 3 August – Henri Cartier-Bresson, French photographer
• 4 August – Cécile Guillame, first woman to engrave a French postal stamps.
• 8 August – Leon Golub, American painter.
• 9 August – Liisi Beckmann, Finnish artist and designer.
• 8 September – Frank Thomas, American animator
• 19 September – Eddie Adams, American Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer

  October to December

• 1 October – Richard Avedon, American photographer.
• 13 October – Ivor Wood, English stop-motion animator.
• 15 October – Irv Novick, American comic book artist.
• 13 November – Harry Lampert, American cartoonist, advertising artist and author.
• 19 November
• *Trina Schart Hyman, American illustrator of children's books.
• *Piet Esser, Dutch sculptor.
• 22 November – Leo Dee, American silverpoint artist.
• 25 November – Ed Paschke, Polish-American painter.
• 9 December – Sergey Voychenko, Belarusian artist and designer.
• 16 December – Agnes Martin, Canadian-American painter.
• 17 December – Tom Wesselmann, American pop artist.
• December – Cleve Gray, American Abstract expressionist painter.