1929 in art

Events

• January 6 – On the death of New York collector Louisine Havemeyer, her collection of paintings, rich in works of Impressionism, is bequeathed to the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
• January 10 – First appearance of Hergé's Belgian comic book hero Tintin as Tintin in the Land of the Soviets, begins serialization in children's newspaper supplement Le Petit Vingtième.
• January 17 – First appearance of E. C. Segar's American sailor comic book hero Popeye in Thimble Theatre.
• April 30 – English painters Stephen Bone and Mary Adshead marry.
• June 6 – Première of the Surrealist film Un Chien Andalou by Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dalí, in Paris.
• July 5 – In London, Scotland Yard seizes 13 paintings of male and female nudes by D. H. Lawrence from a Mayfair gallery on grounds of indecency under the Vagrancy Act 1838.
• August 21 – Mexican painters Diego Rivera and Frieda Kahlo marry for the first time, in a civil ceremony in the town hall at Coyoacán.
• October
• * La galerie Goemans opens in Paris with a Surrealist exhibition featuring Jean Arp, Salvador Dalí, Yves Tanguy and René Magritte.
• * American artist Lynd Ward publishes his first wordless "novel in woodcuts", Gods' Man, in New York City.
• October 12 – Joan Miró marries Pilar Juncosa in Palma, Mallorca.
• October 27 – Socialite Bryan Guinness and his new wife Diana present an exhibition at their London home of paintings by supposed German-born artist Bruno Hat. They are in fact by Brian Howard and Hat is portrayed by Tom Mitford.
• November – The East London Group exhibit with Walter Sickert at the Lefevre Gallery in the West End of London.
• November 7 – The Museum of Modern Art opens in New York City. An exhibit, "Cézanne, Gauguin, Seurat and van Gogh", at the new museum attracts 47,000 visitors.
• December 1 – Underground Electric Railways Company of London officially opens its new headquarters building at 55 Broadway designed by Charles Holden, incorporating sculptures by Jacob Epstein, Eric Gill and Henry Moore.
• Aeropittura is launched in a manifesto, Perspectives of Flight, signed by Benedetta Cappa, Fortunato Depero, Gerardo Dottori, Fillìa, Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, Enrico Prampolini, Mino Somenzi and Guglielmo Sansoni in Italy.
• Cercle et Carré group of abstract artists founded in Paris by Joaquín Torres García and Michel Seuphor.
• The Barcelona chair is designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe.
• Henri Matisse makes more than 300 etchings and lithographs, chiefly of Lisette Löwengard.
• Musashino Art University originates as the Teikoku Bijutsu Gakkō in Tokyo.
• Curtis Moffat opens a gallery at 4 Fitzroy Square in London.
• Karl Blossfeldt publishes a collection of close-up photographs of plants and living things as Urformen der Kunst: Photographische Pflanzenbilder in Berlin.

Awards

• Archibald Prize: John Longstaff – W A Holman, KC
• Laura Knight made a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire

Works

• David Bomberg – Toledo from the Alcazar
• Emily Carr – The Indian Church
• Salvador Dalí
• * The Accommodations of Desire
• * The First Days of Spring
• * The Great Masturbator
• * The Lugubrious Game
• Guan Zilan – Portrait of Miss L
• Edward Hopper – Chop Suey
• Frieda Kahlo –
• Wassily Kandinsky – Upward
• Kawamura Kiyoo – Founding of the Nation
• Paul Klee – Highway and Byways
• Harue Koga - The Sea
• Tamara de Lempicka
• * Autoportrait (Tamara in a Green Bugatti)
• * The Musician
• René Magritte
• * On the Threshold of Liberty
• * The Treachery of Images
• Jeanne Mammen – Boring Dolls
• Carl Milles – The Sun Singer
• Henry Moore – Reclining Figure
• George Pitt Morison – The Foundation of Perth 1829
• Georgia O'Keeffe – The Lawrence Tree
• Francis Picabia – Hera
• Pablo Picasso
• * Nude in an Armchair
• * Woman in a Red Armchair
• Louis Frederick Roslyn – Bronze reliefs on Rawtenstall Cenotaph
• Stanley Spencer – The Resurrection of the Soldiers
• Helen Torr – Houses on a Barge
• Julio Romero de Torres – La Fuensanta
• Grant Wood – Woman with Plants
• Doris Zinkeisen – ''''

Births

January to June

• 2 January – Anton Lehmden, Slovakian-born Austrian painter, co-founder of the Vienna School of Fantastic Realism
• 8 January – Poul Kjærholm, Danish designer
• 13 January – Roy Oxlade, English painter and critic
• 26 January – Jules Feiffer, American cartoonist
• 28 January – Claes Oldenburg, Swedish-born American sculptor
• 9 February – Clement Meadmore Australian-born American sculptor
• 24 February – Zdzisław Beksiński, Polish painter, photographer and fantasy artist
• 4 March – Wolfgang Hollegha, Austrian painter
• 22 March – Yayoi Kusama, Japanese visual artist.
• 31 March
• * Liz Claiborne, Belgian-born American fashion designer and entrepreneur
• * Jay DeFeo, American visual artist
• 5 April – Hugo Claus, Belgian novelist, poet, playwright, painter and film director
• 7 April – Gabriel Caruana, Maltese artist
• 23 May – Vladimír Preclík, Czech writer and sculptor
• 31 May – Nicholas Krushenick, American pop art painter
• 4 June – Davidee Itulu, Inuk artist

July to December

• 13 July – René Laloux, French animator and film director
• 25 July – Bryan Pearce, English naïve painter
• 29 July – Jean Baudrillard, French cultural theorist, sociologist, philosopher, political commentator and photographer
• 8 August – Josef Mikl, Austrian abstract painter
• 4 September – Anne Dunn, painter
• 21 September – Edgar Valter, Estonian writer and illustrator of children's books
• 4 November — Jane Davis Doggett, graphic designer

Undated

• Barrie Cook, English abstract painter
• Li Yuan-chia, Chinese-born artist, poet and curator

Deaths

• January 6 - Louisine Havemeyer, American art collector and philanthropist
• January 12 – Arthur Diehl, English landscape painter
• January 13 – Emil Fuchs, Austrian American sculptor and painter
• January 18 – Maurice Bouchor, French poet and sculptor
• February 14 – Sydney Carline, English painter, war artist
• February 22 – Louise Upton Brumback, American landscape painter
• March 1
• * Vincenzo Gemito, Italian sculptor
• * Ernst Oppler, German painter
• March 5 – Francesco Paolo Michetti, Italian painter
• April 22 – Henry Lerolle, painter and arts patron
• May 5 – Charles Grafly, sculptor
• May 9 – Kate Dickens Perugini, English painter
• June 13 – Margaret Forrest, art collector
• July 3 – Pascal Dagnan-Bouveret, painter
• July 12 – Robert Henri, painter, leader of the Ash Can School
• July 28 – Allen Hutchinson, sculptor
• August 9 – Heinrich Zille, photographer and illustrator
• October 1 – Antoine Bourdelle, sculptor
• October 26 – Aby Warburg, German art historian date unknown - Adelaïde Alsop Robineau, American painter and potter