1981 in art

Events

• 10 September – Picasso's painting Guernica is returned from New York to Madrid.
• Blek le Rat begins his stencil graffiti art in Paris.

Awards

• Archibald Prize: Eric Smith – ''Rudy Komon''

Exhibitions

• 9 June – Black Art an'done opens at Wolverhampton Art Gallery in England.

Works

• Tony Cragg – Britain as Seen from the North
• John Doubleday – Statue of Charlie Chaplin
• Don Eckland – Emergence
• Bryan Hunt – Arch Falls
• Nabil Kanso – Dreamvision series of paintings completed
• Ellsworth Kelly – Curve XXIV
• Carlo Maria Mariani – The Constellation of Leo
• Ana Mendieta Maroya
• Odd Nerdrum – Twilight
• Helmut Newton – Sie kommen!
• Richard Serra – Tilted Arc, Federal Plaza, New York City
• Andy Warhol – Myths series
• Aubrey Williams – Shostakovich series of paintings completed

Births

• 15 April – Seth Wulsin, American artist.
• 19 April – Saskia de Brauw, Dutch model and artist
• 4 November – Paul Tucker, Canadian visual artist and graphic novel and webcomic illustrator.
• 20 November – Scott Hutchison, Scottish singer, songwriter, guitarist, and visual artist

Deaths

• 19 January – Francesca Woodman, 22, American photographer
• 4 April - Isaac Frenkel Frenel, Israeli French painter and sculptor
• 8 May – Grethe Jürgens, German painter
• 25 May – Armando de Armas Romero, Cuban painter
• 28 May – Jean Paul Slusser, painter, designer, art critic, professor, and director of the University of Michigan Museum of Art
• 16 June – Hans Coper, German-born English studio potter
• 19 June – Lotte Reiniger, German silhouette animator and film director
• 29 June – Russell Drysdale, Australian artist
• 8 July – Isaac Soyer, Russian-born American painter,
• 16 July – John E. Berninger, American landscape painter
• 7 September – Christy Brown, Irish author, painter and poet
• 12 October – Enzo Plazzotta, Italian-born British sculptor
• 13 October – Antonio Berni, Argentine painter
• 20 October – Annot, German painter.
• 23 October – Reg Butler, English sculptor
• 17 November – Nano Reid, Irish painter
• 22 November – Corrado Parducci, Italian-American architectural sculptor
• 5 December - Max Spivak - 74, American muralist
• 28 December – Bram van Velde, Dutch painter

Full date unknown

• Hubert Davis, American artist.
• Art Frahm, American pin-up and advertising artist.
• Pinchus Kremegne, Belarusian sculptor, painter and lithographer.