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