1969 in art
Events from the year 1969 in art.
Events
- February 2 – Ten paintings are defaced in New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art.
- August 8 – Iain Macmillan photographs the cover picture for The Beatles' album Abbey Road in London.
- October 5 – Monty Python's Flying Circus is broadcast for the first time on BBC Television, with Terry Gilliam's animations.
- October 18 – Caravaggio's Nativity with St. Francis and St. Lawrence is stolen from its frame in the Oratory of Saint Lawrence in Palermo, Sicily; it has not been recovered as of 2020.
- November 19 – The Apollo 12 lunar module lands on the Moon with astronaut and artist Alan Bean; American artist Forrest "Frosty" Myers claims to have smuggled the art piece Moon Museum onto a leg of the module which will remain on the surface.
- c. December – The music and performance art collective COUM Transmissions is formed in England by Genesis P-Orridge.
- Late – Andy Warhol, John Wilcock, and Gerard Malanga co-found the magazine Interview.
- Opening of the Oakland Museum of California, designed by Kevin Roche.
Exhibitions
- January 9 – In Washington, D.C., the Smithsonian Institution displays the art of Winslow Homer for 6 weeks.
- December 19 - The exhibition Alvin Loving: Psintings opens at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City marking the frst solo exhibition given to a black artist in the institution's history.
- Most of the paintings from the following year's "Lyrical Abstraction" exhibition are displayed at the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, marking a significant return to expressivity in American abstract painting. For two years the exhibition travels throughout the U.S. including to the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City.
Awards
- Archibald Prize: Ray Crooke – George Johnston
- John Moores Painting Prize - Richard Hamilton and Mary Martin for "Toaster" and "Cross"
Works
- Kenojuak Ashevak – The Owl
- Michael Ayrton – The Arkville Minotaur
- Francis Bacon – Three Studies of Lucian Freud
- Thomas Bass – Australian Seal
- Edward Bawden – Victoria tile motif on London Underground's Victoria line
- Fernando Botero -
- Alexander Calder – La Grande Vitesse
- Christo and Jeanne Claude - "Wrapped Coast" in Little Bay, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
- Mai Dantsig – Partisan Ballad
- Helen Frankenthaler – Slice of Stone Itself
- Frank Frazetta – Egyptian Queen
- Milton Glaser - Speed City
- Anna Hyatt Huntington - Equestrian statue of Israel Putnam at Putnam Memorial State Park in Redding, Connecticut
- Jess Collins - If All the World Were Paper and All the Water Sink
- Allen Jones – Hatstand, Table and Chair
- Ronnie Landfield – Diamond Lake
- André Lufwa - "Batteur de tam-tam"
- Joan Mitchell - Sans Neige
- Kanda Nissho – Snow Farm
- Pablo Picasso- The Kiss
- Enzo Plazzotta – Baigneuse
- Jean-Paul Riopelle – La Joute
- Will Roberts – Redberth Village, Pembrokeshire
- Alexander Semionov – Leningrad in the Morning
- Victor Teterin – Sredne-Podjacheskaya Street in Leningrad
- Nikolai Timkov – Russian Winter
- Hans Unger – Oxford Circus and Green Park tile motifs on London Underground's Victoria line
Exhibitions
- December 30 until March 1, 1970 - Spaces at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.
Births
- January 5 – Marilyn Manson, American rock musician and painter
- February 7 – Andrew Micallef, Maltese painter and musician
- July 11 – Abigail McLellan, British painter
- October 5 – Chantal Joffe, English painter
- November 26 – Kara Walker, African American artistdate unknown
- * Boushra Almutawakel, Yemeni photographer
- * Steven Claydon, English sculptor, installation artist and musician
- * Invader, French urban artist
- * Patricia Martín, Mexican curator
Deaths
- January 20 – Luigi Del Bianco, Italian-born American sculptor
- January 29 – Edward Marshall Boehm, American Expressionist sculptor
- March 14 – Ben Shahn, Lithuanian-born American painter and photographer
- March 17 – Daniel Vázquez Díaz, Spanish painter
- May 11 – T. K. Padmini, Keralan feminist painter
- June 12 – Aleksandr Deyneka, Russian painter and sculptor
- July 5 – Walter Gropius, German-born architect
- July 9 – Emerik Feješ, Hungarian and Serbian painter
- July 25 – Otto Dix, German painter and printmaker
- August – Doris Brabham Hatt, English modernist painter
- September 15 – Edith Barry, American sculptor, painter, illustrator and designer
- November 21 – Norman Lindsay, Australian sculptor and cartoonist