1941 in art

Events

• March 17 – In Washington, D.C., the National Gallery of Art is officially opened by President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
• July 14 – American art collector Peggy Guggenheim and German painter Max Ernst arrive in New York City, fleeing occupied Europe.
• August 12 – The first evacuated paintings from the National Gallery in London are moved to underground storage at a slate quarry beneath Manod Mawr in North Wales.
• October 24 – English artist Brian Stonehouse is captured as a Special Operations Executive agent in France.
• October 31 – Work ceases on sculpting Mount Rushmore National Memorial in the United States, continued by Lincoln Borglum after the death in March of his father Gutzon Borglum.
• December 8 – The exhibition American Negro Art: Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries opens in Edith Halpert's Downtown Gallery in New York City.
• December 30 – Peggy Guggenheim marries the exiled Max Ernst in Virginia.
• Ettore DeGrazia's work appears for the first time in Arizona Highways magazine.
• African-American painter Jacob Lawrence completes his Migration Series.
• German-Jewish painter Charlotte Salomon, in hiding in the south of France, begins the autobiographical series of paintings Leben? oder Theater?: Ein Singspiel.
• Indiana University Art Museum established in Bloomington.
• The Art Center in La Jolla established in California.

Awards

• Archibald Prize: William Dargie – ''Sir James Elder, KBE''

Works

• Ansel Adams – Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico
• Ethel V. Ashton – Defenders of the Wyoming Country 1778
• Max Beckmann – Double Portrait, Max Beckmann and Quappi
• Peter Belov – 1941
• Paul Cadmus – Aviator
• Paul Delvaux
• * The Anxious City
• * The Phases of the Moon
• A. E. Doyle and Associates – Loyal B. Stearns Memorial Fountain
• Sir Russell Drysdale – Moody's pub
• Jacob Epstein – '
• Ivon Hitchens
• * '
• * '
• Edward Hopper – '
• Marcel Jean – Armoire Surréaliste
• Yousuf Karsh – The Roaring Lion
• Dame Laura Knight – In For Repairs
• Alonzo Victor Lewis – Dr. Mark A. Matthews
• Musa McKim – Wildlife in White Mountain and Philip Guston – Pulp Wood Logging
• Roberto Matta
• * Composition Abstraite
• * Ecouter Vivre
• * Foeu
• * The Initiation
• * Invasion of the Night
• * Théorie de l’Arbre
• Paul Nash
• * Battle of Britain
• * Totes Meer
• John Petts – Alun Lewis
• Pablo Picasso
• * Dora Maar au Chat
• * Tete de femme (Dora Maar)
• Horace Pippin – Self-portrait
• Albin Polasek – Masaryk Memorial, Chicago
• Victor Vasarely – Untitled
• Carel Weight
• *
• * ''''

Births

• April 13 – Jean-Marc Reiser, French comics artist
• May 23 – Martin Puryear, American sculptor
• June 7 – Tony Ray-Jones, English photographer
• July 12 – Richard Tuttle, American postminimalist sculptor, painter and installation artist
• July 22 – Vaughn Bodē, American underground comix, graphic design and graffiti artist
• August 29 – Ugo Nespolo, Italian painter and filmmaker
• September 20 – Dale Chihuly, American glass sculptor.
• September 24 – Linda McCartney, née Eastman, American music photographer
• December 6 – Bruce Nauman, American installation and video artist
• December 31 – Robert Lenkiewicz, English painter date unknown
• * Mary Kelly, American conceptual artist
• * James Coleman, Irish installation and video artist
• *Don Perlis, American realist painter
• * Irene Avaalaaqiaq Tiktaalaaq, Canadian Inuk artist

Deaths

• January 10 – John Lavery, Irish painter and war artist
• February 6 – Maximilien Luce, French painter
• March 6 – Gutzon Borglum, American sculptor
• March 30 – Bertha Jaques, American etcher
• April 14 – Guillermo Kahlo, German-Mexican photographer
• April 16 – Émile Bernard, French Post-Impressionist painter
• October 25 – Robert Delaunay, French painter
• November 7 – Frank Pick, English transport administrator and patron of art and design
• December 3 – Pavel Filonov, Russian painter and poet
• December 5 – Amrita Sher-Gil, Indian painter
• December 30 – El Lissitzky, Russian designer, architect and photographer date unknown – William Jacob Baer, American miniature painter