1940 in art

Events

• Xawery Dunikowski is deported to the concentration camp at Auschwitz, where he survives until 1945.
• Henry Moore is commissioned as a war artist and produces drawings of Londoners sleeping in the London Underground while sheltering from The Blitz.
• October - Grandma Moses' first solo exhibition, "What a Farm Wife Painted", opens at Otto Kallir's Galerie Saint-Etienne in New York City.

Awards

• Archibald Prize: Max Meldrum - Dr J Forbes McKenzie

Works

Paintings

• Howard Chandler Christy - Scene at the Signing of the Constitution of the United States
• Salvador Dalí
  • The Face of War
  • Slave Market with the Disappearing Bust of Voltaire
• Jesús Guerrero Galván - Head of a Woman
• Edward Hopper
  • Gas
  • Office at Night
• Frida Kahlo - The Dream
• Henri Matisse
  • La Blouse Roumaine
  • Le Rêve de 1940
• Roberto Matta - Dark Light
• John Piper - Coventry Cathedral
• Candido Portinari - Seascape
• Eric Ravilious - Watercolours
  • Submarines in Dry Dock
  • A Warship in Dock
  • Ship's Screw on a Railway Truck
  • Midnight Sun

Sculptures

• Carl Milles - The Wedding of the Waters (fountain, St. Louis, Missouri)
• Attilio Piccirilli - Guglielmo Marconi (bronze, Washington, D.C.)
• José Ângelo Cottinelli Telmo (architect) and Leopoldo de Almeida (sculptor) - Padrão dos Descobrimentos (temporary version)

Births

• January 2 - Peter Young, American, painter
• January 6 - John Byrne, Scottish painter and writer.
• January 24
  • Vito Acconci, conceptual artist, installation artist, performance artist and filmmaker
  • Mel Bochner, conceptual artist.
• March 7 - Hannah Wilke, American painter, sculptor and photographer (d.1993).
• March 20 - Mary Ellen Mark, photographer.
• April 11 - Marcia Tucker, American museum curator (d.2006)
• April 16 - Joan Snyder, American painter
• April 30 - Burt Young, actor, painter and author
• June 17 - Alton Kelley, American poster and album artist (d.2008).
• July 5 - Chuck Close, "photorealistic" painter.
• September 10 - David Mann, painter.
• September 27 - Rudolph Moshammer, German fashion designer (d.2005).
• date unknown
  • Elizabeth Murray, American painter, printmaker and draughtsman (d.2007).
  • Jaune Quick-To-See Smith, painter and printmaker.

Deaths

• January 18 - Jonas Lie, landscape painter
• February 27 - Nicolae Tonitza, painter and etcher
• April 15 - Alexandru Plămădeală, Moldovan sculptor (b. 1888)
• June 21 - Édouard Vuillard, painter (b. 1868)
• June 29 - Paul Klee, Swiss painter expressionism, cubism, and surrealism (b. 1879)
• July 4 - Józef Pankiewicz, painter, graphic artist and teacher (b. 1866)
• August 22 - Paul Gösch, German artist and architect (b. 1885)
• September 15 - Dick Ket, painter
• September 27 - Walter Benjamin, German philosopher, "comparatist" and art critic (b. 1892)
• November 17 - Eric Gill, sculptor and engraver (b. 1882)
• date unknown - Francesco Stella, painter and set designer (b. 1862)

See also

• 1940 in fine arts of the Soviet Union