# 1968 in art

Events from the year 1968 in art.

## Events

* March 5 – Musical chess match between Marcel Duchamp and John Cage takes place at Ryerson Polytechnic, Toronto.
* May 2 – Christ Church Picture Gallery in Oxford, England, designed by Powell and Moya, is opened.
* June 3 – Radical feminist Valerie Solanas shoots Andy Warhol at his New York City studio, The Factory; he survives after a 5-hour operation.
* July 17 – Release of the animated musical fantasy film Yellow Submarine in the United Kingdom, directed by George Dunning with art direction by Heinz Edelmann.
* August 20 – The National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne, Australia, designed by Sir Roy Grounds, is opened.
* September 15 – The Neue Nationalgalerie in West Berlin, Germany, designed by Mies van der Rohe, is opened.
* November 7 – New building for the São Paulo Museum of Art (MASP) in Brazil, designed by Lina Bo Bardi, is inaugurated.
* Rubens' The Adoration of the Magi (1634) is installed as an altarpiece at King's College Chapel, Cambridge.

## Awards

* Archibald Prize: William Edwin Pidgeon – Lloyd Rees
* Elaine Hamilton wins first prize at the Biennale de Menton, France

## Exhibitions

* Eva Hesse – Chain Polymers, Fischbach Gallery, W. 57th Street, New York City
* Ralph Hotere – Black Paintings, Auckland, New Zealand

## Works

* William Anders – Earthrise (photograph)
* Edward Bawden – Tottenham Hale and Highbury & Islington tile motifs on London Underground's Victoria line
* Julia Black – Walthamstow Central tile motif on London Underground's Victoria line
* Alexander Calder – Gwenfritz (stabile)
* Donald De Lue – The Special Warfare Memorial Statue
* Paul Delvaux – The Sacrifice of Iphigenia
* Mark di Suvero – Snowplow (sculpture)
* Joseph Drapell – Life (sculpture, Halifax, Nova Scotia)
* Tom Eckersley – Finsbury Park, King's Cross St Pancras and Euston tile motifs on London Underground's Victoria line
* M. C. Escher – Metamorphosis III (colored woodcut print)
* Alan Fletcher – Warren Street tile motif on London Underground's Victoria line
* Ángela Gurría - Señal in Mexico City, Mexico created for the occasion of the 1968 Summer Olympics
* Barbara Hepworth – Two Figures (sculpture), Three Obliques (Walk In) (sculpture)
* David Hockney
** Christopher Isherwood and Don Bachardy Archived 2017-01-18 at the Wayback Machine
** Marilyn Tapestry
* Dani Karavan – Monument to the Negev Brigade on hill overlooking Beersheba, Israel (completed)
* Eduardo Kingman – Fin de Mascarada
* Joan Miró – begins series The navigator's hope
* Henry Moore – Three-Piece No. 3: Vertebrae (Working Model)
* Robert Motherwell – Open #23 (loaned by Graham Gund to Museum of Fine Arts, Boston)
* Otto Muehl, Günter Brus and other followers of Viennese Actionism – Kunst und Revolution (performance art)
* Isamu Noguchi – Octetra (concrete sculpture)
* Gerhard Richter – Domplatz, Mailand ("Cathedral Square, Milan")
* Monica Sjöö – God Giving Birth
* Kenneth Snelson – Needle Tower
* Hans Unger – Blackhorse Road and Seven Sisters tile motifs on London Underground's Victoria line
* David Wynne – River God Tyne and Swans in Flight (sculptures, Newcastle Civic Centre)
* Pangborn-Herndon Memorial Site (memorial column)

## Births

* May 21 – Hans-Ulrich Obrist, Swiss-born curator
* June 3 – Eric White, American visual artist
* July 6 – Gaspare Manos, Thai-Italian painter and sculptor
* July 11 – Patrik Andiné, Swedish painter
* July 23 – Paulo Henrique, Portuguese choreographer and multidisciplinary artist
* August 16 – Wolfgang Tillmans, German fine-art photographer
* September 17 – David Shrigley, British visual artist
* December 13 – Michael Triegel, German painter
* December 23 – Manuel Rivera-Ortiz, Puerto Rican documentary photographer
* date unknown
** Sika Foyer, Togolese American artist
** Nahem Shoa, British portrait painter

## Deaths

* February 11 – Jacob Steinhardt, German-born Jewish painter and woodcut artist (born 1887)
* April 26 – John Heartfield, German graphic designer (born 1891)
* May 9 – Harold Gray, American cartoonist, created Little Orphan Annie (born 1894)
* May 21 – Bror Hjorth, Swedish sculptor (born 1894)
* May 28 – Kees van Dongen, Dutch Fauvist painter (born 1877)
* June 17 – Cassandre, French graphic designer (born 1901)
* July 2 – Sir Hans Heysen, German-born Australian watercolour painter (born 1877)
* July 16 – William John Leech, Irish painter (born 1881)
* August 8 – Orovida Pissarro, English painter and etcher (born 1893)
* October 2 – Marcel Duchamp, influential French artist (born 1887)
* November – Lee Gatch, American painter and mixed-media artist (born 1902)
* November 2 – Estella Solomons, Irish painter (born 1882)
* November 4 – Michel Kikoine, Litvak-born French painter (born 1892)
* November 11 – Janet Sobel, Ukrainian American Abstract Expressionist pioneer of drip painting (born 1893)
* date unknown – William Conor, Irish painter (born 1881)