1978 in art

Events

• 27 June – Stitching the Standard by Edmund Leighton is sold at Sotheby's in Belgravia to a private collector.

Awards

• Archibald Prize: Brett Whiteley – Art, Life and the other thing
• John Moores Painting Prize - Noel Forster for "A painting in six stages with a silk triangle"

Works

• Alicia Austin – Alicia Austin's Age of Dreams
• Zdzisław Beksiński – AA78
• Christo and Jeanne Claude - "Wrapped Walk Ways" in Loose Park in Kansas City, Missouri
• Dan Flavin – untitled
• Helen Frankenthaler – Cleveland Symphony Orchestra
• David Gentleman – "Eleanor cross" mural for Charing Cross tube station
• Jack Goldstein – The Jump
• Michael Heizer – Isolated Mass/Circumflex (Number 2)
• Bryan Hunt – Big Twist
• Nabil Kanso – Hiroshima Nagasaki One-Minute
• Liz Leyh – Concrete Cows
• Odd Nerdrum – The Murder of Andreas Baader
• Dennis Oppenheim – Cobalt Vectors – An Invasion
• Mikhail Savitsky – ''Partisan Madonna of Minsk''

Births

• 19 September – Russell Ouellett, American artist and therapist.

Deaths

• 10 January – Gluck, born Hannah Gluckstein, English painter
• 19 January – Živko Stojsavljević, Serbian painter.
• 1 February – Don Freeman, American author, painter and illustrator
• 24 February – Alma Thomas, African American abstract expressionist painter.
• 13 April – Jack Chambers, Canadian artist and filmmaker.
• 27 April – Ralston Crawford, Canadian-born American painter, lithographer and photographer
• 29 April – Yukihiko Yasuda, Japanese painter.
• 8 May – Duncan Grant, Scottish painter.
• 21 May – Jo Spier, Dutch artist and illustrator
• 31 May – Hannah Höch, German Dada photomontage artist.
• 13 July
• *Thomas B. Hess, American art editor, writer, and curator
• *Oliver Messel, English-born stage designer.
• 5 August – Victor Hasselblad, Swedish inventor and photographer.
• 14 August – Nicolas Bentley, British author and illustrator.
• 27 August – Gordon Matta-Clark, American artist.
• 6 November – Harry Bertoia, Italian-born American artist and designer.
• 8 November – Norman Rockwell, American painter and illustrator.
• 20 November – Giorgio de Chirico, Greek-Italian painter.
• 30 November - Otto Kallir, Austrian -American art historian, author, publisher, and gallerist.

Full date unknown

• Gabriel Hayes, Irish sculptor and coin designer.
• Leo Michelson, Latvian-American painter and sculptor.