1944 in art

Events

• June 6 – Normandy landings: Robert Capa takes "The Magnificent Eleven" photographs.
• July – Dulwich Picture Gallery in London is substantially damaged by a V-1 flying bomb; half a dozen paintings are destroyed, but most have been evacuated to Aberystwyth.
• Autumn – Peggy Guggenheim's The Art of This Century gallery on Manhattan releases a 78 rpm 3-record album containing Paul Bowles' Sonata for Flute and Piano and Two Mexican Dances with a cover by Max Ernst.
• Clandestine publication of Vaincre, an album of 12 colour lithographs by 8 artists in support of the French Resistance.

Awards

• Archibald Prize: Joshua Smith – ''Hon Sol Rosevear, MHR, Speaker of the House of Representatives''

Exhibitions

• Jean Dubuffet's first solo exhibition.

Works

• David Aronson – The Last Supper
• Duffy Ayers – Portrait of Tirzah Garwood
• Francis Bacon – Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion
• David Bomberg – '
• Stella Bowen – '
• Robert Capa – "The Magnificent Eleven"
• William Coldstream – Casualty Reception Station, Capua
• Salvador Dalí –
• * Dream Caused by the Flight of a Bee Around a Pomegranate a Second Before Awakening
• * Tristan and Isolde created for the ballet Mad Tristan by Leonide Massine and Dali which in turn was inspired by the opera Tristan und Isolde by Richard Wagner
• Paul Delvaux – Sleeping Venus
• Jacob Epstein – sculptures
• * First Portrait of Esther
• * Lucifer
• George Grosz – Cain, or Hitler in Hell
• Ivor Hele – '
• Jean Hélion – The Stairway
• Bror Hjorth – Gås-Anders
• Frida Kahlo
• * The Broken Column
• * '
• Dame Laura Knight – Take Off
• Fernand Léger – Three Musicians
• Henri Matisse – Annelies, White Tulips and Anemones
• Joan Miró – Barcelona Series
• Piet Mondrian – Victory Boogie-Woogie
• Walter Thomas Monnington
• * '
• * Tempests Attacking Flying-bombs
• Felix Nussbaum – Triumph of Death
• Pablo Picasso – Man with Sheep
• William Roberts
• * '
• * '
• * '
• Robert F. Sargent – Into the Jaws of Death
• Ben Shahn – ''The Red Stairway''

Births

• 9 January – Ian Hornak, American painter and draughtsman.
• 10 January – Jeff Jones, American illustrator.
• 12 February - Jane Livingston, American curator.
• 4 March – Glen Baxter, English cartoonist.
• 29 March – Abbas, Iranian-born documentary photographer.
• 4 April – Phyllida Barlow, English sculptor.
• 8 May – David Vaughan, English psychedelic artist and muralist.
• 24 July – Maya Wildevuur, Dutch painter.
• 4 August – Allan McCollum, American conceptual artist, all media.
• 15 August – Gianfranco Ferré, Italian fashion designer.
• 20 August – Brian Barnes, English mural artist.
• 27 August – Catherine Leroy, French-born photographer.
• 1 September – Louis Delsarte, American painter.
• 4 November
• * Don Eddy, American painter.
• * Michael Heizer, American sculptor, earth artist.
• 23 November – Peter Lindbergh, born Peter Brodbeck, Polish-born fashion photographer.

Full date unknown

• Richard Mock, American painter, sculptor and cartoonist.
• Allen Ruppersberg, American conceptual artist, installation artist.

Deaths

• January 23 – Edvard Munch, Norwegian expressionist painter
• February 1 – Piet Mondrian, Dutch abstract painter
• February 26 – Lucienne Heuvelmans, French sculptor
• April 25 – George Herriman, American cartoonist
• July 18 – Rex Whistler, English painter
• August 2 – Felix Nussbaum, German Jewish surrealist painter
• August 18 – Hans Mertens, German painter
• September 3 – William Logsdail, English landscape, portrait and genre painter
• September 27
• * Aristide Maillol, French sculptor
• * Sergey Prokudin-Gorsky, Russian-born color photographer
• * David Dougal Williams, British painter
• October 14 – Marko Murat, Serbian painter
• October 21 – Hilma af Klint, Swedish abstract painter and mystic
• November 22 – Sir George Clausen, English artist
• December 10 – Miklós Ligeti, Hungarian sculptor
• December 13 – Wassily Kandinsky, Russian abstract painter
• December 24 – Alfred Drury, English sculptor
• Undated – Esther Kenworthy Waterhouse, English flower painter