# 2003 in art

The year 2003 in art involved various significant events.

## Events

* January 21 – The Spire of Dublin is completed.
* May 11 – Benvenuto Cellini's Saliera is stolen from the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna.
* June 15–November 2 – A record number of seven co-curators is involved in the 50th edition of the Venice Biennale, directed by Francesco Bonami.
* August 27 – Leonardo da Vinci's Madonna of the Yarnwinder is stolen from the Duke of Buccleuch collection at Drumlanrig Castle in Scotland. It is recovered in 2007.
* November – Gustav Klimt's Landhaus am Attersee sells for $29,128,000.
* December 25 – Beagle 2 lands on the surface of Mars; its calibration target plate is painted by Damien Hirst.
* date unknown – Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design in London takes over the Byam Shaw School of Art.

## Exhibitions

* Jim Sanborn, Critical Assembly, Corcoran School of Art
* Patti Smith, Strange Messenger, The Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh
* November 11 until January 31, 2004 - "Assemblage'(Arman, John Chamberlin, Christo, Joseph Cornell, Jim Dine, Marcel Duchamp, George Herms, Edward Kienholz, Larry Rivers, Jason Rhoades, Dieter Roth, Kurt Schwitters, Daniel Spoerri, Jean Tinguely, and [[[Richard Tuttle]]) at the David Zwirner Gallery) in New York City.

## Awards

* Archibald Prize – Geoffrey Dyer, a portrait of Richard Flanagan
* Beck's Futures – Rosalind Nashashibi
* Schock Prize in Visual Arts – Susan Rothenberg
* Turner Prize – Grayson Perry
* The Venice Biennale (June 15 - November 2) -
** The Lion d'Or Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement: Michelangelo Pistoletto (Italy) and Carol Rama (Italy)
** The Lion d'or for best artwork in the main exhibition: Fischli and Weiss (Switzerland)
** The Lion d'Or for Best Pavilion: Sun-Mei Tse (Luxemburg)
* Wynne Prize – Tim Kyle, Seated Figure

## Works

* Eco-Earth Globe, Salem, Oregon
* Jake and Dinos Chapman – Insult to Injury
* Tony Cragg – Stainless Steel Pillar
* Olafur Eliasson – The weather project (installation in Turbine Hall of Tate Modern, London)
* David Fairbairn – Self Portrait DF
* Cornelia Parker – The Distance (A Kiss With String Attached): Subconscious of a Monument (interventionist sculpture)
* Michal Rovner – Data Zone
* Jørn Utzon – Homage to Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach (tapestry in the Sydney Opera House)
* Kehinde Wiley – Go

## Films

* Girl with a Pearl Earring
* Mona Lisa Smile
* Sound of Colors
* The Floating Landscape
* Turn Left, Turn Right

## Deaths
### January to March

* 9 January – Constantin Kluge, Russian and French painter (b.1912).
* 20 January – Al Hirschfeld, American caricaturist (b.1903).
* 21 January – Tony O'Malley, Irish painter (b.1913).
* 27 January – Louis Archambault, Canadian sculptor (b.1915).
* 2 February – Emerson Woelffer, American painter (b.1914).
* 10 February – Edgar de Evia, Mexican-born American photographer (b.1910).
* 14 March – Jack Goldstein, Canadian-born American performance and conceptual artist turned painter (b.1945).

### April to June

* 9 April – Jorge Oteiza, Spanish sculptor, painter, designer and writer (b.1908).
* 16 April – Graham Stuart Thomas, English horticultural artist, author and garden designer (b.1909).
* 23 April – Fernand Fonssagrives, French photographer (b.1910).
* 25 April – Lynn Chadwick, 88, English sculptor
* 29 May – Pierre Restany, French art critic and cultural philosopher (b.1930).
* 7 June – Georges Pichard, French comics artist (b.1920).

### July to September

* 11 July - Dorothy Miller, 99, American curator (b.1904).
* 15 August – Kirk Varnedoe, American art historian, writer and curator (b.1946).
* 21 August – Wesley Willis, American artist and musician (b.1963).
* 29 August – Vladimír Vašíček, Czech painter (b.1919).
* 1 September – Terry Frost, English artist noted for his abstracts (b.1915).

### October to December

* 3 October – William Steig, American cartoonist, sculptor and author (b.1907).
* 16 October – Avni Arbaş, Turkish artist (b.1919).
* 9 November – Mario Merz, Italian artist (b.1925).
* 4 December – David Vaughan, English psychedelic artist and muralist (b. 1944).
* 15 December – George Fisher, American political cartoonist (b.1923).
* 17 December – Wally Hedrick, American artist (b.1928).