# 1956 in art

Events from the year 1956 in art.

## Events

* March 1 – Replica statue of the Discus Thrower dedicated in Washington, D.C., as a gift from the Italian government to commemorate the return of looted art objects after World War II.
* March – 56 Group founded, to promote modernist art in Wales. Subsequently renamed 56 Group Wales.
* September 17 – Release in the United States of the biographical film Lust for Life with Kirk Douglas portraying Vincent van Gogh and Anthony Quinn as Paul Gauguin.
* Le mystère Picasso, a French documentary film, shows Pablo Picasso in the act of creating paintings for the camera (which he subsequently destroys so that they will exist only on film).
* William Klein publishes his photo essay New York, 1954–55.
* Shanghai Art Museum, the predecessor of the China Art Museum, opens.
* English curator Jim Ede settles at Kettle's Yard, Cambridge, England.
* English painter Edward Seago joins a tour of the Antarctic.
* Two attacks are made on Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa in the Louvre, Paris.

## Awards

* Archibald Prize: William Dargie – Mr Albert Namatjira
* Kate Greenaway Medal – Edward Ardizzone for Tim All Alone

## Films

* Lust for Life

## Works

* Laurence Bradshaw – Monument to Karl Marx at Highgate Cemetery, London (including bronze bust)
* Alexander Calder – Red Mobile
* Frank Cadogan Cowper – The Golden Bowl
* Salvador Dalí – Living Still Life
* M. C. Escher – Print Gallery (lithograph)
* Max Ernst – L'oiseau Rose
* Helen Frankenthaler – Eden
* Richard Hamilton – Just What Is It that Makes Today's Homes So Different, So Appealing? (collage)
* Rudolf Hausner – The Ark of Odysseus
* Eduardo Kingman – La Lavendera
* Roy Lichtenstein – Ten Dollar Bill (lithograph)
* O. Winston Link - Hotshot Eastbound (black-and-white photograph)
* L. S. Lowry – The Floating Bridge
* Joan Mitchell
** Café
** Hemlock
* Candido Portinari – Self-portrait
* Norman Rockwell – The Scoutmaster
* Kay Sage – Le Passage
* Alexander Nikolayevich Samokhvalov – Cafe Gurzuf
* Charles Sheeler – On a Shaker Theme
* David Wynne – Sir Thomas Beecham (bronzes)

## Exhibitions

* August 9–September 9 – This Is Tomorrow, Whitechapel Art Gallery, London, featuring principally the interdisciplinary ICA Independent Group, including early examples of Pop Art.

## Births

* January 2 – Lynda Barry, American cartoonist
* January 19 – Junpei Satoh, Japanese Western-style painter
* February 24 – Fiona Graham-Mackay, née Bain, British portrait painter
* May 25 – Andrea Pazienza, Italian comics artist (d. 1988)
* date unknown
** Lee Bae, South Korean visual artist
** Emma Biggs, English mosaicist
** Cornelia Parker, English sculptor and installation artist
** Veronica Ryan, Montserrat-born British sculptor
** Mackenzie Thorpe, English painter and sculptor

## Deaths

* January 13 – Lyonel Feininger, German American painter and cartoonist (b. 1871)
* April 23 – Cecile Walton, Scottish painter, illustrator and sculptor (b. 1891)
* May 3 – Peter Watson, English arts benefactor (murdered) (b. 1908)
* June 8 – Marie Laurencin, French painter and engraver (b. 1883)
* June 11 - Frank Brangwyn, Welsh painter (b. 1867)
* July 26 – Louis Raemaekers, Dutch painter and cartoonist (b. 1869)
* August 7 – LeMoine FitzGerald, Canadian painter (b. 1890)
* August 11 – Jackson Pollock, American painter (b. 1912)
* August 16 – Theodor Pallady, Romanian painter (b. 1871)
* November 3 – Jean Metzinger, French painter (b. 1883)
* December 16 – Nina Hamnett, British painter, model and designer (b. 1890)
* Mohamed Nagy, Egyptian painter (b. 1888)