# 1948 in art

Events from the year 1948 in art.

## Events

* Summer – The art exhibitions at the Venice Biennale are revived, introducing American abstract expressionism to Europe and part of the Peggy Guggenheim Collection to Venice.
* November 8 – COBRA (avant-garde movement) is formed by Karel Appel, Constant, Corneille, Christian Dotremont, Asger Jorn and Joseph Noiret.
* Georges Braque begins work on his Ateliers.
* The Colony Room Club, a private members' drinking club at 41 Dean Street, Soho, London, is founded and presided over by Muriel Belcher; painter Francis Bacon becomes a member the day after it opens, establishing it as a centre for London's alcoholic artistic elite.
* Cadillac introduce the car tailfin, to Frank Hershey's design authorized by Harley Earl.

## Exhibitions

* September 21 until December 5 - Collage (curated by Margaret Miller) at MoMA in New York City.

## Awards

* Archibald Prize: William Dobell – Margaret Olley

## Works
### Paintings

* Victor Brauner – Meeting with Myself at the four Cats of the World
* Otto Dix – Ecce homo with self-likeness behind barbed wire
* Russell Drysdale – The cricketers
* Rudolf Hausner – It's Me!
* Isabel Lambert – Three Fish
* Henri Matisse – The Plum Blossoms
* Barnett Newman – Onement I
* Sidney Nolan – The Abandoned Mine
* Jackson Pollock – No. 5, 1948
* Anne Redpath – Window in Menton
* Constance Stokes – Girl in Red Tights (approx. date)
* Rufino Tamayo – Cazadores de mariposas
* Andrew Wyeth
** Christina's World
** McVey's Barn
** Karl

### Sculpture

* Wäinö Aaltonen – Kun ystävyyssuhteet solmitaan
* Joseph Cornell – Untitled (Cockatoo and Corks)
* Jacob Epstein – Lazarus
* Marino Marini – The Angel of the City
* Gerda Sprinchorn – Linnéstaty (modeled 1907)
* Iglica
* Thomas W. Talbot Monument

### Graphic works

* M. C. Escher
** Dewdrop (mezzotint)
** Drawing Hands (lithograph)
** Stars (wood engraving)

## Births

* January 24 – Machiko Satonaka, Japanese manga artist
* March 9 – Eric Fischl, American painter
* March 14 – James Nachtwey, American photojournalist
* April 14 – Berry Berenson, American model and photographer (d. 2001)
* June 30 – Wolf Erlbruch, German children's book illustrator and writer
* July 7 – Alison Wilding, English sculptor and academic
* September 20 – Adrian Piper, American conceptual artist
* October 2 – Donna Karan, American fashion designer
* October 8 – Gottfried Helnwein, Austrian fine artist, photographer, installation and performance artist
* November 1 – Bill Woodrow, British sculptor
* November 18 – Ana Mendieta, Cuban American performance artist (d. 1985)
* December 18 – Mimmo Paladino, Italian sculptor, painter and printmaker
* December 26 – Lin Onus, Scottish-Aboriginal Koori artist (d. 1996)
* Full date unknown
** Jonathan Lasker, American abstract painter
** Christopher Makos, American photographer
** Marilyn Minter, American painter and photographer
** Roberta Smith, American art critic (The New York Times)
** Andrew Stevovich, Austrian-born American painter

## Deaths

* January 8 – Kurt Schwitters, German painter, collagist and poet (b. 1887)
* January 21 – Ambrosia Tønnesen, Norwegian sculptor (b. 1859)
* February 23 – Fidus, German illustrator, painter and publisher (b. 1868)
* March 23 – Yevgeniy Abalakov, Soviet sculptor and mountaineer (b. 1907)
* March 24 – Sigrid Hjertén, Swedish modernist painter (b. 1885)
* July 21 – Arshile Gorky, Armenian American painter (b. 1904)
* August – Feliu Elias, Spanish caricaturist and painter (b. 1878)
* September 9 – Ignacy Pieńkowski, Polish painter (b. 1877)
* September 22 – Felicjan Kowarski, Polish painter and sculptor (b. 1885)
* October 17 – Royal Cortissoz, American art critic (b. 1869)
* November 4 – Shinzō Fukuhara, Japanese photographer (b. 1883)
* December 28 – Hakob Gyurjian, Armenian sculptor (b. 1890)
* December 30 – George Ault, American Precisionist painter (b. 1891)
* Date unknown – Hector Hyppolite, Haitian painter (b. 1894)