# 1969 in art

Events from the year 1969 in art.

## Events

* January 9 – In Washington, D.C., the Smithsonian Institution displays the art of Winslow Homer for 6 weeks.
* February 2 – Ten paintings are defaced in New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art.
* August 8 – Iain Macmillan photographs the cover picture for The Beatles' album Abbey Road in London.
* October 5 – Monty Python's Flying Circus is broadcast for the first time on BBC Television, with Terry Gilliam's animations.
* October 18 – Caravaggio's Nativity with St. Francis and St. Lawrence (c.1609) is stolen from its frame in the Oratory of Saint Lawrence in Palermo, Sicily; it has not been recovered as of 2020.
* November 19 – The Apollo 12 lunar module lands on the Moon with astronaut and artist Alan Bean; American artist Forrest "Frosty" Myers claims to have smuggled the art piece Moon Museum onto a leg of the module which will remain on the surface.
* c. December – The music and performance art collective COUM Transmissions is formed in England by Genesis P-Orridge.
* Late – Andy Warhol, John Wilcock, and Gerard Malanga co-found the magazine Interview.
* Opening of the Oakland Museum of California, designed by Kevin Roche.
* Lyrical Abstraction exhibition debuts at the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum marking a significant return to expressivity in American abstract painting. For two years the exhibition travels throughout the U.S. including to the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City.

## Awards

* Archibald Prize: Ray Crooke – George Johnston
* John Moores Painting Prize - Richard Hamilton and Mary Martin for "Toaster" and "Cross" (respectively)

## Works

* Kenojuak Ashevak – The Owl
* Michael Ayrton – The Arkville Minotaur
* Francis Bacon – Three Studies of Lucian Freud
* Thomas Bass – Australian Seal (bronze, Washington, D.C.)
* Edward Bawden – Victoria tile motif on London Underground's Victoria line
* Fernando Botero - Protestant Family
* Alexander Calder – La Grande Vitesse (sculpture)
* Christo and Jeanne Claude - "Wrapped Coast" in Little Bay, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
* Mai Dantsig – Partisan Ballad
* Helen Frankenthaler – Slice of Stone Itself
* Frank Frazetta – Egyptian Queen
* Milton Glaser - Speed City
* Anna Hyatt Huntington - Equestrian statue of Israel Putnam at Putnam Memorial State Park in Redding, Connecticut (dedicated)
* Allen Jones – Hatstand, Table and Chair (sculptures)
* Ronnie Landfield – Diamond Lake
* André Lufwa - "Batteur de tam-tam"
* Joan Mitchell - Sans Neige
* Kanda Nissho – Snow Farm
* Pablo Picasso- The Kiss
* Enzo Plazzotta – Baigneuse
* Jean-Paul Riopelle – La Joute (public sculptural installation, Montreal)
* Will Roberts – Redberth Village, Pembrokeshire
* Alexander Semionov – Leningrad in the Morning
* Victor Teterin – Sredne-Podjacheskaya Street in Leningrad
* Nikolai Timkov – Russian Winter
* Hans Unger – Oxford Circus and Green Park tile motifs on London Underground's Victoria line

## Exhibitions

* December 30 until March 1, 1970 - Spaces at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City (Dan Flavin, Larry Bell, Robert Morris, Franz Erhard Walther, and Pulsa).

## Births

* January 5 – Marilyn Manson, American rock musician and painter
* February 7 – Andrew Micallef, Maltese painter and musician
* July 11 – Abigail McLellan, British painter (d. 2009)
* October 5 – Chantal Joffe, English painter
* November 26 – Kara Walker, African American artist
* date unknown
** Boushra Almutawakel, Yemeni photographer
** Steven Claydon, English sculptor, installation artist and musician
** Invader, French urban artist
** Patricia Martín, Mexican curator

## Deaths

* January 20 – Luigi Del Bianco, Italian-born American sculptor (b. 1892)
* January 29 – Edward Marshall Boehm, American Expressionist sculptor (b. 1913)
* March 14 – Ben Shahn, Lithuanian-born American painter and photographer (b. 1898)
* March 17 – Daniel Vázquez Díaz, Spanish painter (b. 1882)
* May 11 – T. K. Padmini, Keralan feminist painter (b. 1940; d. in childbirth)
* June 12 – Aleksandr Deyneka, Russian painter and sculptor (b. 1899)
* July 5 – Walter Gropius, German-born architect (b. 1883)
* July 9 – Emerik Feješ, Hungarian and Serbian painter (b. 1904)
* July 25 – Otto Dix, German painter and printmaker (b. 1891)
* August – Doris Brabham Hatt, English modernist painter (b. 1890)
* September 15 – Edith Barry, American sculptor, painter, illustrator and designer (b. 1883)
* November 21 – Norman Lindsay, Australian sculptor and cartoonist (born 1879)