2003 in art

Events

• January 21 – The Spire of Dublin is completed.
• May 11 – Benvenuto Cellini's Saliera is stolen from the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna.
• June 15–November 2 – A record number of seven co-curators is involved in the 50th edition of the Venice Biennale, directed by Francesco Bonami.
• August 27 – Leonardo da Vinci's Madonna of the Yarnwinder is stolen from the Duke of Buccleuch collection at Drumlanrig Castle in Scotland. It is recovered in 2007.
• November – Gustav Klimt's Landhaus am Attersee sells for $29,128,000.
• December 25 – Beagle 2 lands on the surface of Mars; its calibration target plate is painted by Damien Hirst.
• date unknown – Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design in London takes over the Byam Shaw School of Art.

Exhibitions

• Jim Sanborn, Critical Assembly, Corcoran School of Art
• Patti Smith, Strange Messenger, The Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh
• November 11 until January 31, 2004 - "Assemblage" at the David Zwirner Gallery in New York City.

Awards

• Archibald Prize – Geoffrey Dyer, a portrait of Richard Flanagan
• Beck's Futures – Rosalind Nashashibi
• Schock Prize in Visual Arts – Susan Rothenberg
• Turner Prize – Grayson Perry
• The Venice Biennale -
• *The Lion d'Or Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement: Michelangelo Pistoletto and Carol Rama
• *The Lion d'or for best artwork in the main exhibition: Fischli and Weiss
• *The Lion d'Or for Best Pavilion: Sun-Mei Tse
• Wynne Prize – Tim Kyle, ''Seated Figure''

Works

• Eco-Earth Globe, Salem, Oregon
• Jake and Dinos Chapman – Insult to Injury
• Tony Cragg – Stainless Steel Pillar
• Olafur Eliasson – The weather project
• David Fairbairn – Self Portrait DF
• Cornelia Parker – The Distance : Subconscious of a Monument
• Michal Rovner – Data Zone
• Jørn Utzon – Homage to Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach
• Kehinde Wiley – ''Go''

Films

• ''Turn Left, Turn Right''

Deaths

January to March

• 9 January – Constantin Kluge, Russian and French painter.
• 20 January – Al Hirschfeld, American caricaturist.
• 21 January – Tony O'Malley, Irish painter.
• 27 January – Louis Archambault, Canadian sculptor.
• 2 February – Emerson Woelffer, American painter.
• 10 February – Edgar de Evia, Mexican-born American photographer.
• 15 February – Vincent Apap, Maltese sculptor
• 14 March – Jack Goldstein, Canadian-born American performance and conceptual artist turned painter.

April to June

• 9 April – Jorge Oteiza, Spanish sculptor, painter, designer and writer.
• 16 April – Graham Stuart Thomas, English horticultural artist, author and garden designer.
• 23 April – Fernand Fonssagrives, French photographer.
• 25 April – Lynn Chadwick, 88, English sculptor
• 29 May – Pierre Restany, French art critic and cultural philosopher.
• 7 June – Georges Pichard, French comics artist.
• 13 June – Lajos Tscheligi, Hungarian painter.

July to September

• 11 July - Dorothy Miller, 99, American curator.
• 15 August – Kirk Varnedoe, American art historian, writer and curator.
• 21 August – Wesley Willis, American artist and musician.
• 29 August – Vladimír Vašíček, Czech painter.
• 1 September – Terry Frost, English artist noted for his abstracts.

October to December

• 3 October – William Steig, American cartoonist, sculptor and author.
• 16 October – Avni Arbaş, Turkish artist.
• 9 November – Mario Merz, Italian artist.
• 4 December – David Vaughan, English psychedelic artist and muralist.
• 15 December – George Fisher, American political cartoonist.
• 17 December – Wally Hedrick, American artist.