2004 in art
The year 2004 in art involved various significant events and new art works.
Events
- April – A Belgian activist group cuts off the left hand of a bronze Congolese figure in a monument to Leopold II of Belgium in Ostend as a protest against colonial atrocities.
- 24 May – A fire in the Momart storage warehouse destroys major works by Helen Chadwick, Tracey Emin, Patrick Heron, Damien Hirst and other British artists.
- 18 July – The subterranean Chichu Art Museum on the Japanese island of Naoshima, designed by Tadao Ando, opens.
- 11 December – İstanbul Modern is established in Turkey. The country's first modern art museum, the Doğançay Museum, opened earlier in the year, also in Istanbul; it is dedicated to the artistic legacy of Burhan Doğançay.
Works
- David Backhouse – Animals in War Memorial
- Banksy
- *Di-faced Tenner
- *Kissing Coppers
- Bruce Beasley – Encounter
- Lucian Freud – The Brigadier
- Rachel Joynt – Noah's Egg
- Liz Magor – LightShed
- Cornelia Parker – Perpetual Canon
- Paula Rego – The Cake Woman
- Donald Wilson – Holon
- Statue of Mahatma Gandhi
- Artworks at Millennium Park in Chicago, United States:
- *Anish Kapoor – Cloud Gate
- *Jaume Plensa – ''Crown Fountain''
Awards
- Archibald Prize – Craig Ruddy, David Gulpilil, two worlds
- Artes Mundi Prize – Xu Bing
- Beck's Futures – Saskia Olde Wolbers
- Hugo Boss Prize – Rirkrit Tiravanija
- Caldecott Medal for children's book illustration – Mordicai Gerstein, The Man Who Walked Between the Towers
- En Foco's New Works Photography Award – Manuel Rivera-Ortiz
- John Moores Painting Prize – Alexis Harding, Slump/Fear
- Wynne prize – George Tjungurrayi, ''Untitled''
Exhibitions
- Edward Delaney retrospective at the Royal Hibernian Academy, Dublin
- Drawings of Jim Dine at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
- Erich Heckel – His Work in the 1920s at the Brücke Museum, Berlin
- Paul Henry at the National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin
- Edward Hopper at the Tate Gallery, London
Films
Deaths
January to March
- 4 January – Jeff Nuttall, English poet, publisher, actor, painter and sculptor
- 9 January – Nissim Ezekiel, Indian poet, playwright and art critic
- 3 February - Ward Jackson, American painter
- 7 February – Norman Thelwell, English cartoonist
- 4 March – Stephen Sprouse, American fashion designer and artist
- 12 March – Milton Resnick, American painter
- 13 March – René Laloux, French animator and film director
- 27 March - Gerome Kamrowski, American artist
April to June
- 1 April – Enrique Grau, Colombian painter and sculptor
- 7 April – Wolfgang Mattheuer, German painter and sculptor
- 13 April – Muriel Berman, American art collector and philanthropist, co-founder of the Philip and Muriel Berman Museum at Ursinus College in Collegeville, Pennsylvania
- 25 April – Jacques Rouxel, French animator
- 12 May – Syd Hoff, American children’s book author and cartoonist
- 28 May – Jean-Philippe Charbonnier, French photographer
- 5 June – Fiore de Henriquez, Italian-born British sculptor
- 11 June – Egon von Fürstenberg, Swiss fashion designer
- 15 June – Lothar Fischer, German sculptor
July to September
- 2 July – John Cullen Murphy, American comics artist
- 19 July – Sylvia Daoust, Canadian sculptor
- 3 August – Henri Cartier-Bresson, French photographer
- 4 August – Cécile Guillame, first woman to engrave a French postal stamps.
- 8 August – Leon Golub, American painter.
- 9 August – Liisi Beckmann, Finnish artist and designer.
- 8 September – Frank Thomas, American animator
- 19 September – Eddie Adams, American Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer
October to December
- 1 October – Richard Avedon, American photographer.
- 13 October – Ivor Wood, English stop-motion animator.
- 15 October – Irv Novick, American comic book artist.
- 13 November – Harry Lampert, American cartoonist, advertising artist and author.
- 19 November
- *Trina Schart Hyman, American illustrator of children's books.
- *Piet Esser, Dutch sculptor.
- 22 November – Leo Dee, American silverpoint artist.
- 25 November – Ed Paschke, Polish-American painter.
- 9 December – Sergey Voychenko, Belarusian artist and designer.
- 16 December – Agnes Martin, Canadian-American painter.
- 17 December – Tom Wesselmann, American pop artist.
- December – Cleve Gray, American Abstract expressionist painter.