# 1949 in art

Events from the year 1949 in art.

## Events

* Formation of Penwith Society of Arts in St Ives, Cornwall.
* Philadelphia Artists Equity is established in Pennsylvania, United States, to protect artists' rights and improve working and economic conditions for fine artists.
* Young Contemporaries exhibition, initiated by Carel Weight for the British Society of Artists Galleries, establishes the New Contemporaries series.
* David Jones begins a 5-year sequence of watercolours of flowers in glasses.
* Yves Klein paints his first monochromes, while apprenticed to a picture-frame maker in London.

## Awards

* Archibald Prize: Arthur Murch – Bonar Dunlop

## Works

* Francis Bacon – Head III, Head IV, Head V, Head VI
* Brenda Chamberlain – The Fisherman's Return (National Museum of Wales)
* Salvador Dalí
** Leda Atomica
** The Madonna of Port Lligat (original version; Haggerty Museum of Art, Milwaukee, Wisconsin)
* Paul Delvaux – The Temple
* Sir William Reid Dick – Lady Godiva (equestrian bronze, Coventry)
* Sir Russell Drysdale – West Wyalong
* Frida Kahlo
** Diego and I
** The Love Embrace of the Universe, the Earth (Mexico), Myself, Diego, and Señor Xolotl
* Tadeusz Kantor – Man with Umbrella
* Wifredo Lam = Femme avec un Oiseau
* L. S. Lowry
** The Canal Bridge
** The Football Match
** The Spire
* Henry Moore – Family Group (first casting)
* Robert Motherwell – Five in the Afternoon
* Barnett Newman – Abraham
* Pablo Picasso – Dove
* William Scott
** Frying Pan and Eggs
** Still Life with Candlestick
* Graham Sutherland – Somerset Maugham
* Steffen Thomas – Statue of Eugene Talmadge
* Vladimir Tretchikoff – The Dying Swan
* Boris Vladimirski – Roses for Stalin
* Lucien Wercollier – Le prisonnier politique (bronze)
* Andrzej Wróblewski – Execution V

## Births

* February 17 – Peter Kennard, English photomontage artist
* February 18 – Charlie Waite, English landscape photographer
* February 27 – Richard P. Cook, English artist
* March 11 – Griselda Pollock, South African-born feminist visual art historian and theorist
* April 9 – Stephen Hickman, American illustrator, sculptor and author
* May 7 – Deborah Butterfield, American sculptor
* May 12 – Ross Bleckner, American painter
* July 6 – Tibor Kalman, Hungarian-American graphic designer (d. 1999)
* August 12 – Glòria Muñoz, Spanish painter
* August 15 – Richard Deacon, British sculptor
* August 27 – Istvan Kantor, Hungarian-Canadian performance artist
* Jim Dolan, American sculptor
* P. K. Mahanandia, Indian-born portrait artist
* Lincoln Perry -American painter, muralist, and sculptor

## Deaths

* March 17 – Aleksandra Ekster, painter and designer, Art Deco pioneer (b. 1882)
* May 3 – Mariano Fortuny, fashion designer (b. 1871)
* May 15 – Henri Beau, Canadian Impressionist painter (b. 1863)
* June 21 – Edward Wadsworth, English Vorticist painter (b. 1889)
* August 8 – Joaquín Torres García, Uruguayan painter (b. 1874)
* September 7 - José Clemente Orozco, Mexican painter and illustrator (b. 1883)
* September 25 – Henri Manguin, painter (b. 1874)
* November 3 – Solomon R. Guggenheim, art collector (b. 1861)
* November 19 – James Ensor, painter (b. 1860)
* November 27 – Vincenzo Irolli, Italian painter (b. 1860)
* December 28 – Emília dos Santos Braga, Portuguese painter (b. 1867)
* (Herbert Barnard) John Everett, English marine artist (b. 1877)