# 1991 in art

Events from the year 1991 in art.

## Events

* 14 April – In the Netherlands, thieves steal 20 paintings worth $500 million from the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam. Less than an hour later they are found in an abandoned car near the museum.
* 25 May – Opening of the Irish Museum of Modern Art in Dublin.
* 9 July – The Sainsbury Wing of the National Gallery in London, designed by Robert Venturi and Denise Scott, is opened.
* September – Opening of the Weserburg modern art museum in Bremen (Germany) as the Neues Museum Weserburg Bremen.

## Publications

* The Prince of Wales (now Charles III) - Watercolours.
* Eric Hebborn, Drawn to Trouble

## Exhibitions

* February 6 until May 6 - Albert Bierstadt, Art & Enterprise at the Brooklyn Museum in Brooklyn, New York.
* December 13 until February 2, 1992 - Damien Hirst solo exhibition at Institute of Contemporary Arts.

## Dance

* May – First performance of Candoco Dance Company

## Awards

* John Moores Painting Prize - Andrzej Jackowski for "The Beekeeper's son"
* Turner Prize – Anish Kapoor

## Works

* Las niñas en la alborada – Félix Aráuz
* "The Umbrellas" (simultaneous sculptural instillations in California, U.S.A. and Japan) - Christo and Jeanne Claude
* Chain Reaction (sculpture, Santa Monica, California) – Paul Conrad
* Field (multiple figure sculptures in terracotta - first version) – Antony Gormley
* Isolated Elements Swimming in the Same Direction for the Purposes of Understanding – Damien Hirst
* The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living – Damien Hirst
* Capitalism (sculpture in Portland, Oregon) – Larry Kirkland
* Guardians of the Gate (bronze, San Francisco) – Miles Metzger
* PBS 1963-2000 (electric image components and neon, sculpture, Trenton, new Jersey) - Nam Jun Paik
* Cold Dark Matter: An Exploded View (installation) – Cornelia Parker
* Tompkins Square Crawl (performance) - William Pope.L
* Self (sculpted self-portrait head in artist's blood - first version) – Marc Quinn
* Host Analog (sculpture, Portland, Oregon) – Buster Simpson
* Cascade Charley (fountain, Eugene, Oregon) – Alice Wingwall

## Births

* Hannah Levy, American sculptor
* Probable date – Cartяain, English graffiti urban artist.

## Deaths
### January to June

* 3 January – Doris Zinkeisen, British theatrical designer and commercial artist (b. 1898).
* 11 January – Charles Mozley, British artist and art teacher (b. 1914)
* 7 February – Jean-Paul Mousseau, Canadian artist (b. 1927).
* 13 February – Arno Breker, German sculptor (b. 1900).
* 15 March – Vladimir Seleznev, Russian painter (b. 1928).
* 29 March – Guy Bourdin, French photographer (b. 1928).
* 10 June – Jean Bruller, French writer and illustrator (b. 1902).

### July to December

* 16 July – Robert Motherwell, American abstract expressionist painter and printmaker (b. 1915).
* 3 August – Boris Ugarov, Russian painter, a last President of the Academy of Arts of the USSR (b. 1922).
* 30 August – Jean Tinguely, Swiss painter and sculptor (b. 1925).
* 5 September
** Alexander Pushnin, Russian painter and art educator (b. 1921).
** Princess Fahrelnissa Zeid, Turkish abstract artist (b. 1901).
* 14 September – Russell Lynes, American art historian, photographer and author (b. 1910).
* 18 September - Leland Bell, American painter (b. 1922).
* 24 September – Dr. Seuss, American illustrator (b. 1904).
* 8 October – David Budd, American abstract painter (b. 1927)
* 27 October – Pyke Koch, Dutch painter (b. 1901).
* 7 November – Tom of Finland, Finnish fetish artist (b. 1920).
* 11 November – Nadezhda Shteinmiller, Russian painter and theater artist (b. 1915).
* 18 November – Reg Parlett, English comics artist (b. 1904).
* 21 November – Joseph Delaney, American painter (b. 1904).
* 8 December - Bernice Abbott, American photographer (b. 1898).
* 9 December
** Greta Kempton, Austrian-American artist (b. 1901).
** Gisèle Lestrange, French graphic artist (b. 1927).
* 12 December - Moshe Castel, Israeli painter (b. 1909).