1956 in art

Events

• March 1 – Replica statue of the Discus Thrower dedicated in Washington, D.C., as a gift from the Italian government to commemorate the return of looted art objects after World War II.
• March - 56 Group founded, to promote modernist art in Wales. Subsequently renamed 56 Group Wales.
• August 9 – Art exhibition This Is Tomorrow opens at Whitechapel Art Gallery in London.
• September 17 – Release in the United States of the biographical film Lust for Life with Kirk Douglas portraying Vincent van Gogh and Anthony Quinn as Paul Gauguin.
• Le mystère Picasso, a French documentary film, shows Pablo Picasso in the act of creating paintings for the camera.
• William Klein publishes his photo essay New York, 1954-55.
• Shanghai Art Museum, the predecessor of the China Art Museum, opens.
• English curator Jim Ede settles at Kettle's Yard, Cambridge, England.
• English painter Edward Seago joins a tour of the Antarctic.
• Two attacks are made on Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa in the Louvre, Paris.

Awards

• Archibald Prize: William Dargie – Mr Albert Namatjira
• Kate Greenaway Medal – Edward Ardizzone for ''Tim All Alone''

Films

• Lust for Life

Works

• Laurence Bradshaw – Monument to Karl Marx at Highgate Cemetery, London
• Alexander Calder – Red Mobile
• Frank Cadogan Cowper – The Golden Bowl
• Salvador Dalí – Living Still Life
• M. C. Escher – Print Gallery
• Max Ernst – L'oiseau Rose
• Helen Frankenthaler – Eden
• Richard Hamilton – Just What Is It that Makes Today's Homes So Different, So Appealing?
• Rudolf Hausner – The Ark of Odysseus
• Eduardo Kingman – La Lavendera
• Roy Lichtenstein – Ten Dollar Bill
• O. Winston Link - Hotshot Eastbound
• L. S. Lowry – The Floating Bridge
• Joan Mitchell
• *Café
• *Hemlock
• Candido Portinari – Self-portrait
• Norman Rockwell – The Scoutmaster
• Kay Sage – Le Passage
• Alexander Nikolayevich Samokhvalov – Cafe Gurzuf
• Charles Sheeler –
• David Wynne – ''Sir Thomas Beecham''

Exhibitions

• August 9-September 9 – This Is Tomorrow, Whitechapel Art Gallery, London, featuring principally the interdisciplinary ICA Independent Group, including early examples of Pop Art.

Births

• January 2 – Lynda Barry, American cartoonist
• January 19 – Junpei Satoh, Japanese Western-style painter
• February 24 – Fiona Graham-Mackay, née Bain, British portrait painter
• May 25 – Andrea Pazienza, Italian comics artist
• date unknown
• *Lee Bae, South Korean visual artist
• *Emma Biggs, English mosaicist
• *Cornelia Parker, English sculptor and installation artist
• *Veronica Ryan, Montserrat-born British sculptor
• *Mackenzie Thorpe, English painter and sculptor

Deaths

• January 13 – Lyonel Feininger, German American painter and cartoonist
• April 23 – Cecile Walton, Scottish painter, illustrator and sculptor
• May 3 – Peter Watson, English arts benefactor
• June 8 – Marie Laurencin, French painter and engraver
• June 11 - Frank Brangwyn, Welsh painter
• July 26 – Louis Raemaekers, Dutch painter and cartoonist
• August 7 – LeMoine FitzGerald, Canadian painter
• August 11 – Jackson Pollock, American painter
• August 16 – Theodor Pallady, Romanian painter
• November 3 – Jean Metzinger, French painter
• December 16 – Nina Hamnett, British painter, model and designer
• Mohamed Nagy, Egyptian painter