# 1954 in art

Events from the year 1954 in art.

## Events

* November 18 – Publication of Yves Peintures (in Madrid), the first public showing of Yves Klein's work.
* December – Pablo Picasso begins painting his Les Femmes d'Alger ("The Women of Algiers") series in homage to Delacroix's 1834 painting of the same name and to the memory of Matisse.

## Awards

* Archibald Prize: Ivor Hele – Rt Hon R G Menzies, PC, CH, QC, MP
* New Year Honours – Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire: Jacob Epstein

## Exhibitions

* Augustus John at the Royal Academy

## Works

* Francis Bacon
** Figure with Meat (Art Institute of Chicago)
** Two Figures in the Grass
* Thomas Hart Benton – The Kentuckian
* John Brack – The Bar (National Gallery of Victoria)
* Terence Cuneo
** The Coronation of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, Westminster Abbey, 2nd June 1953
** The Coronation Luncheon for Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth in Guildhall, 12th June 1953
* Salvador Dalí
** The Colossus of Rhodes
** Crucifixion (Corpus Hypercubus)
** The Disintegration of the Persistence of Memory
** Young Virgin Auto-Sodomized by the Horns of Her Own Chastity
* Jared French - The Rope
* Franz Kline – Painting No 2 (Museum of Modern Art, New York)
* Willem de Kooning – Marilyn Monroe
* Fernand Léger – Stained-glass window at University City of Caracas
* L. S. Lowry – Piccadilly Gardens
* Sergei Orlov and others – Statue of Yuriy Dolgorukiy, Moscow
* Abbott Pattison – Iron Horse (sculpture)
* Pablo Picasso – Sylvette
* Norman Rockwell – Breaking Home Ties
* Simon Rodia - Watts Towers (sculptures-assemblage) (completed)
* Mark Rothko – Untitled (Yellow and Blue)
* Graham Sutherland – Portrait of Winston Churchill (later destroyed on orders issued by the Prime Minister's wife, Lady Clementine Churchill)
* Victor Vasarely – Hommage á Malévitch (ceramic wall at University City of Caracas)

## Births

* January 19 – Cindy Sherman, American photographer and artist
* February 6 – George Sherwood, American kinetic and landscape sculptor
* September 12 – Robert Gober, American sculptor
* December 6 - Nicola De Maria, Italian painter
* Lubaina Himid, Zanzibar-born British graphic artist

## Deaths

* January 26 – Carl Eldh, Swedish painter and sculptor (b. 1873)
* February 21 – Augustin Lesage, French outsider artist (b. 1876)
* March 13 – César Klein, German painter and designer (b. 1876)
* May 5 – Henri Laurens, French sculptor (b. 1885)
* May 16 – Werner Bischof, Swiss photojournalist (b. 1916)
* May 25 – Robert Capa, Hungarian-born photojournalist (b. 1913)
* June 9 – Alain LeRoy Locke, American patron of the arts (b. 1886)
* July – Gaetano Orsolini, Italian sculptor, medallist and engraver (b. 1884)
* July 3 – Reginald Marsh, American painter (b. 1898)
* July 13 – Frida Kahlo, Mexican painter (b. 1907)
* August 28 – Leonid Sherwood, Russian sculptor (b. 1871)
* September 8
** Sigvald Asbjørnsen, Norwegian American sculptor (b. 1867)
** André Derain, French painter and illustrator (b. 1880)
* October 15 – Elwin Hawthorne, English painter (b. 1905)
* October 18 – Einar Jónsson, Icelandic sculptor (b. 1874)
* November 3 – Henri Matisse, French painter, sculptor and printmaker (b. 1869)
* December 23 – René Iché, French sculptor (b. 1897)