1948 in art

Events

• Summer – The art exhibitions at the Venice Biennale are revived, introducing American abstract expressionism to Europe and part of the Peggy Guggenheim Collection to Venice.
• November 8 – COBRA (avant-garde movement) is formed by Karel Appel, Constant, Corneille, Christian Dotremont, Asger Jorn and Joseph Noiret.
• Georges Braque begins work on his Ateliers.
• The Colony Room Club, a private members' drinking club at 41 Dean Street, Soho, London, is founded and presided over by Muriel Belcher; painter Francis Bacon becomes a member the day after it opens, establishing it as a centre for London's alcoholic artistic elite.
• Cadillac introduce the car tailfin, to Frank Hershey's design authorized by Harley Earl.

Exhibitions

• September 21 until December 5 - Collage at MoMA in New York City.

Awards

• Archibald Prize: William Dobell – ''Margaret Olley''

Works

Paintings

• Victor Brauner – Meeting with Myself at the four Cats of the World
• Otto Dix – Ecce homo with self-likeness behind barbed wire
• Russell Drysdale – The cricketers
• Rudolf Hausner – It's Me!
• Isabel Lambert – Three Fish
• Henri Matisse – The Plum Blossoms
• Barnett Newman – Onement I
• Sidney Nolan – The Abandoned Mine
• Jackson Pollock – No. 5, 1948
• Anne Redpath – Window in Menton
• Constance Stokes – Girl in Red Tights
• Rufino Tamayo – Cazadores de mariposas
• Andrew Wyeth
• * Christina's World
• * McVey's Barn
• * ''Karl''

Sculpture

• Wäinö Aaltonen – Kun ystävyyssuhteet solmitaan
• Joseph Cornell – Untitled
• Jacob Epstein – Lazarus
• Marino Marini – The Angel of the City
• Gerda Sprinchorn – Linnéstaty Iglica
• Thomas W. Talbot Monument

Graphic works

• M. C. Escher
• * Dewdrop
• * Drawing Hands
• * ''Stars''

Births

• January 24 – Machiko Satonaka, Japanese manga artist
• March 9 – Eric Fischl, American painter
• March 14 – James Nachtwey, American photojournalist
• April 14 – Berry Berenson, American model and photographer
• June 30 – Wolf Erlbruch, German children's book illustrator and writer
• July 7 – Alison Wilding, English sculptor and academic
• September 20 – Adrian Piper, American conceptual artist
• October 2 – Donna Karan, American fashion designer
• October 8 – Gottfried Helnwein, Austrian fine artist, photographer, installation and performance artist
• November 1 – Bill Woodrow, British sculptor
• November 18 – Ana Mendieta, Cuban American performance artist
• December 18 – Mimmo Paladino, Italian sculptor, painter and printmaker
• December 26 – Lin Onus, Scottish-Aboriginal Koori artist Full date unknown
• * Jonathan Lasker, American abstract painter
• * Christopher Makos, American photographer
• * Marilyn Minter, American painter and photographer
• * Roberta Smith, American art critic
• * Andrew Stevovich, Austrian-born American painter

Deaths

• January 8 – Kurt Schwitters, German painter, collagist and poet
• January 21 – Ambrosia Tønnesen, Norwegian sculptor
• February 23 – Fidus, German illustrator, painter and publisher
• March 23 – Yevgeniy Abalakov, Soviet sculptor and mountaineer
• March 24 – Sigrid Hjertén, Swedish modernist painter
• July 21 – Arshile Gorky, Armenian American painter
• August – Feliu Elias, Spanish caricaturist and painter
• September 9 – Ignacy Pieńkowski, Polish painter
• September 22 – Felicjan Kowarski, Polish painter and sculptor
• October 17 – Royal Cortissoz, American art critic
• November 4 – Shinzō Fukuhara, Japanese photographer
• December 28 – Hakob Gyurjian, Armenian sculptor
• December 30 – George Ault, American Precisionist painter Date unknown – Hector Hyppolite, Haitian painter