1946 in art

Events

• March – Art collector Peggy Guggenheim publishes the first edition of her autobiographical Out of This Century in the United States.
• April 2 – Jackson Pollock's third solo exhibition opens in the Daylight Gallery of Peggy Guggenheim's The Art of This Century gallery on Manhattan.
• May 22 – The Equestrian statue of Christian V recast in bronze by Einar Utzon-Frank is unveiled on Kongens Nytorv, Copenhagen.
• October 11 – National Gallery of Bosnia and Herzegovina established in Sarajevo.
• October 24 – In a double ceremony, Max Ernst marries Dorothea Tanning and Man Ray marries Juliet P. Browner in Beverly Hills, California.
• The Vienna School of Fantastic Realism is founded by Ernst Fuchs, Rudolf Hausner, and others.
• The Borough Group of artists is founded in London by Cliff Holden.
• Jean Dubuffet exhibits the series of works with paint mixed with sand and gravel, Hautes Pâtes, at the Galérie René Drouin.
• Jacob Lawrence begins painting his War Series.
• Sidney Nolan begins his first series of paintings of Ned Kelly.
• David Olère begins to produce artworks based on his experiences as Jewish Sonderkommando inmate 106144 of Auschwitz concentration camp during World War II.
• Musée de la Chartreuse, Molsheim, France, established

Awards

• Archibald Prize: William Dargie – ''L C Robson, MC, MA''

Works

• Harold Abbott – Triptych of Suffering
• George Ault – Bright Light at Russell's Corners
• Francis Bacon
• * Painting (1946)
• * Study for Man with Microphones
• Charles Comfort – Dieppe Raid
• Dean Cornwell – The History of Transportation
• Salvador Dalí – The Temptation of St. Anthony
• Jean Dubuffet – Apartment Houses
• Jacob Epstein – Bust of Winston Churchill
• M. C. Escher – lithographs
• * Magic Mirror
• * Three Spheres II
• Sawlaram Haldankar – Glow of Hope
• Barbara Hepworth – sculptures
• * Pelagos
• * Tides
• Edward Hopper – Approaching a City
• Laura Knight – The Nuremberg Trial
• L. S. Lowry – Good Friday, Daisy Nook
• Henri Matisse – L'Asie
• Georgia O'Keeffe – Bare Tree Trunks With Snow
• Pablo Picasso – Woman-Flower
• Ad Reinhardt – How to Look at Modern Art in America
• Norman Rockwell – "Boy in a Dining Car"
• William Scott – The Frying Pan
• Andrew Wyeth – Winter 1946
• Jack Butler Yeats
• * Men of Destiny
• * ''The Whistle of a Jacket''

Exhibitions

Births

• January 8 – Betty Beaumont, Canadian American site-specific artist, all media
• January 10 – Kalidas Karmakar, Bangladeshi artist
• January 18 – Kirk Varnedoe, American art historian, writer and curator
• January 26 – Timothy Clifford, English art historian and curator
• February 9 – Peter Linde, Swedish sculptor
• April 11 – Chris Burden, American performance and installation artist and sculptor
• April 27 – Nicholas Serota, English curator
• May 30 – Jan de Bie, painter and photographer
• June 29 – Egon von Fürstenberg, Swiss fashion designer
• July 6 – Jamie Wyeth, American realist painter
• July 11 – Chris Killip, Manx-born documentary photographer
• July 25 – Nicole Farhi, French sculptor and fashion designer
• August 2 – Daniela Hammer-Tugendhat, Austrian art historian
• August 16 – Louis-Pierre Bougie, Canadian painter and printmaker
• September 27 – T. C. Cannon, Native American painter
• November 4 – Robert Mapplethorpe, American photographer
• November 5 – Herman Brood, Dutch musician, painter and media personality
• November 20 – Alice Aycock, American sculptor and installation artist
• December 2 – Gianni Versace, Italian fashion designer
• December 8 – Jacques Bourboulon, French nude and fashion photographer
• December 12 – Don Gummer, American sculptor
• December 25 – Christopher Frayling, English cultural historian

Deaths

• January 2 – O'Galop, French cartoonist
• January 23 – Helene Schjerfbeck, Finnish painter
• February 17
• * Dorothy Gibson, American artist's model and silent film actress
• * Sir George Pirie, Scottish painter
• July 11 – Paul Nash, English painter
• July 13 – Alfred Stieglitz, American photographer
• July 17 – Florence Fuller, Australian painter
• October 7 - C. R. W. Nevinson, English war artist
• October 28 – Manuel Ortiz de Zárate, Chilean painter
• October 30 – Charles Despiau, French sculptor
• November 23
• * Arthur Dove, American abstract painter
• * Léon Spilliaert, Belgian symbolist painter and graphic artist
• November 24 – László Moholy-Nagy, Hungarian painter and photographer
• December 28 – Elie Nadelman, Polish-born American sculptor
• December 29 – Arnold Friedman, American Modernist painter