1921 in art
Events from the year 1921 in art.
Events
- March – Puhl & Wagner are contracted to decorate the interior of the Golden Hall (Stockholm City Hall) with neo-Byzantine mosaics designed by Einar Forseth.
- September–October – 5x5=25 abstract art exhibition held in Moscow.
- unknown dates
- *The first of the Western Front demarcation stones, designed by Paul Moreau-Vauthier, are erected in France and Belgium.
- *The experimental short documentary film Manhatta is shot by painter Charles Sheeler and photographer Paul Strand in New York City.
- *Thomas Gainsborough's c. 1770 portrait The Blue Boy from the collection of the Duke of Westminster is sold by dealer Joseph Duveen to California magnate Henry E. Huntington for $728,800, according to Duveen's bill, a record price for any painting at this time.
- *André Delatte opens his glasswares studio in Nancy.
- *Simon Rodia begins construction of the Watts Towers in Los Angeles.
Awards
- Archibald Prize: W B McInnes – ''Desbrowe Annear''
Works
- Carlo Carrà – The Engineer's Lover
- Dora Carrington – '
- Charles Demuth – Incense of a New Church
- Guy Pène du Bois – An American Oriental
- Marcel Duchamp – Why Not Sneeze, Rose Sélavy?
- Max Ernst – The Elephant Celebes
- Jean-Léon Gérôme - Matoax
- Lady Feodora Gleichen – 37th Division memorial
- Daniel Chester French – Statue of the Marquis de Lafayette
- J. W. Godward – Megilla
- Duncan Grant – '
- Auguste Herbin – Le Cateau-Cambrésis
- Edward Hopper – Girl at Sewing Machine
- Wassily Kandinsky - Weisses Oval
- Seán Keating – Men of the South
- Ernst Ludwig Kirchner
- * Two Brothers
- * View of Basel and the Rhine
- Boris Kustodiev – Portrait of Chaliapin
- Fernand Léger
- *
- * Still Life with a Beer Mug
- Wyndham Lewis – Mr Wyndham Lewis as a Tyro
- Sir Bertram Mackennal – Bronze equestrian statue of King Edward VII
- Piet Mondrian
- * Composition with Red, Yellow and Blue
- * Tableau I
- Edvard Munch – Model by the Wicker Chair
- Alfred Munnings – The Red Prince Mare
- Francis Picabia
- * The Cacodylic Eye
- * Cannibale
- Pablo Picasso
- * Reading the Letter
- * Three Musicians
- * Three Women at the Spring
- Man Ray – The Gift
- Stanley Spencer
- * Christ's Entry into Jerusalem
- * Crucifixion
- Félix Vallotton – Femme nue dormant au bord de l'eau
- Han van Meegeren – Hertje
- Owe Zerge - ''Victoria Mortis''
Publications
- Paul Sérusier – ''ABC de la peinture''
Births
January to June
- January 1 – César Baldaccini, French sculptor
- January 3 – Bill Gold, American graphic designer
- January 14 – Norris Embry, American neo-expressionist painter
- January 24 – Sybil Connolly, Welsh-Irish fashion designer
- January 27 – Georges Mathieu, French abstract painter
- February 2 – Pietro Cascella, Italian painter and sculptor
- February 5 – Ken Adam, German-born British film set designer
- February 13 – Louis Féraud, French fashion designer and artist
- February 20 – Michael Ayrton, English sculptor, graphic artist and writer
- February 22 – Cecil King, Irish abstract-minimalist painter
- February 23 – John Latham, Zambian conceptual artist
- March 2 – Ernst Haas, Austrian photographer
- March 13 – Al Jaffee, American cartoonist
- March 28 – Norman Bluhm, American painter
- April 21 – Dimitrije Bašičević, Serbian painter and sculptor
- April 23 – William Brice, American painter and teacher
- April 25 – Karel Appel, Dutch painter, sculptor and poet
- May 18 – Joan Eardley, British painter
- May 29 – Enzo Plazzotta, Italian-born British sculptor
- June 20 – Fiore de Henriquez, Italian-born British sculptor
July to December
- July 16
- * Ernst Beyeler, Swiss art dealer and collector
- * Guy Laroche, French fashion designer
- July 16 – Boscoe Holder, Trinidadian painter
- July 17 – Richard Jeranian, Armenian painter, draftsman and lithographer
- August 4 – Jean Pierre Capron, French painter
- August 18 - Zdzisław Żygulski, Jr., Polish art historian
- August 28 – Jean-Philippe Charbonnier, French photographer
- September 22 – Will Elder, American illustrator and comic book artist
- September 25 – Jacques Martin, French comics creator
- September 27 – Jean-Pierre Sudre, French photographer
- October 26 – Raymond Nasher, American art collector
- November 12 – Gerson Leiber, American painter, lithographer and sculptor
- November 17 – Albert Bertelsen, Danish artist
- November 26 – Françoise Gilot, French watercolorist and ceramicist
Deaths
- January 18 – Adolf von Hildebrand, sculptor
- January 30 – John Francis Murphy, landscape painter
- February 2 – Antonio Jacobsen, Danish-American maritime artist
- February 3 – William Strang, painter and engraver
- February 4 – Eugène Burnand, Swiss painter
- February 11 – William Blake Richmond, English painter and designer
- February 21 – George Dunlop Leslie, English genre painter
- March 2 – Johann Friedrich Engel, German painter
- March 23 – Jean-Paul Laurens, painter and sculptor
- March 24 – Marcus Stone, painter and illustrator
- March 30 – Franz Benque, photographer
- April 6 – Vardges Sureniants, Armenian painter
- April 30 – Mabel Esplin, English stained-glass artist
- May 5 – William Friese-Greene, photographer and cinematographer
- May 29 – Abbott Handerson Thayer, painter
- June – Frank Enders, painter and etcher
- October 7 – John Thomson, photographer
- November 1 – Francisco Pradilla Ortiz, painter
- November 12 – Fernand Khnopff, Symbolist painter
- November 13 – William Robert Colton, sculptor