1944 In Art

Events from the year 1944 in art.

Events

* June 6 – Normandy landings: Robert Capa takes "'' The Magnificent Eleven''" photographs.
* July – Dulwich Picture Gallery in London is substantially damaged by a V-1 flying bomb; half a dozen paintings are destroyed, but most have been evacuated to Aberystwyth.
* Autumn – Peggy Guggenheim's The Art of This Century gallery on Manhattan releases a 78 rpm 3-record album containing Paul Bowles' Sonata for Flute and Piano and Two Mexican Dances with a cover by Max Ernst.
* Clandestine publication of ''Vaincre'', an album of 12 colour lithographs by 8 artists in support of the French Resistance.

Awards

* Archibald Prize: '' Joshua Smith'' – ''Hon Sol Rosevear, MHR, Speaker of the House of Representatives''

Exhibitions

* Jean Dubuffet's first solo exhibition.

Works

* David Aronson – ''The Last Supper''
* Duffy Ayers – ''Portrait of Tirzah Garwood''
* Francis Bacon – '' Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion''
* David Bomberg –
Evening in the City of London
'
* Stella Bowen –
Bomber Crew
'
* Robert Capa – "'' The Magnificent Eleven''" (photographs)
* William Coldstream – ''Casualty Reception Station, Capua''
* Salvador Dalí –
** ''Dream Caused by the Flight of a Bee Around a Pomegranate a Second Before Awakening''
** ''Tristan and Isolde'' created for the ballet ''Mad Tristan'' by Leonide Massine and Dali which in turn was inspired by the opera Tristan und Isolde by Richard Wagner
* Paul Delvaux – '' Sleeping Venus''
* Jacob Epstein – sculptures
** ''First Portrait of Esther (with long hair)''
** ''Lucifer''
* George Grosz – ''Cain, or Hitler in Hell''
* Jean Hélion – ''The Stairway''
* Bror Hjorth – '' Gås-Anders'' (sculpture)
* Frida Kahlo
** ''The Broken Column''
**
Diego and Frida 1929-1944
'
* Dame Laura Knight – ''Take Off''
* Fernand Léger – ''Three Musicians'' (Museum of Modern Art, New York)
* Henri Matisse – '' Annelies, White Tulips and Anemones''
* Joan Miró – '' Barcelona Series'' ( lithographs)
* Piet Mondrian (died February 1) – ''Victory Boogie-Woogie'' (unfinished)
* Walter Thomas Monnington
**
Southern England: Spitfires Attacking Flying-bombs
'
** '' Tempests Attacking Flying-bombs''
* Felix Nussbaum – ''Triumph of Death''
* Pablo Picasso – ''Man with Sheep'' (sculpture)
* William Roberts
**
The Ballet
'
**

'
**

'
* Robert F. Sargent – ''Into the Jaws of Death'' (photograph)
* Ben Shahn – ''The Red Stairway''

Births

* 9 January – Ian Hornak, American painter and draughtsman (d. 2002).
* 10 January – Jeff Jones, American illustrator.
* 12 February - Jane Livingston, American curator.
* 4 March – Glen Baxter, English cartoonist.
* 29 March – Abbas, Iranian-born documentary photographer (d. 2018).
* 4 April – Phyllida Barlow, English sculptor (d. 2023).
* 8 May – David Vaughan, English psychedelic artist and muralist (d. 2003).
* 24 July – Maya Wildevuur, Dutch painter (d. 2023).
* 4 August – Allan McCollum, American conceptual artist, all media.
* 15 August – Gianfranco Ferré, Italian fashion designer (d. 2007).
* 20 August – Brian Barnes, English mural artist.
* 27 August – Catherine Leroy, French-born photographer (d. 2006).
* 1 September – Louis Delsarte, American painter (d. 2020).
* 4 November
** Don Eddy, American painter.
** Michael Heizer, American sculptor, earth artist.
* 23 November – Peter Lindbergh, born Peter Brodbeck, Polish-born fashion photographer (d. 2019).

Full date unknown

* Richard Mock, American painter, sculptor and cartoonist (d. 2006).
* Allen Ruppersberg, American conceptual artist, installation artist.

Deaths

* January 23 – Edvard Munch, Norwegian expressionist painter (b. 1863)
* February 1 – Piet Mondrian, Dutch abstract painter (b. 1872)
* February 26 – Lucienne Heuvelmans, French sculptor (b. 1885?)
* April 25 – George Herriman, American cartoonist (Krazy Kat) (b. 1880)
* July 18 – Rex Whistler, English painter (killed in action) (b. 1905)
* August 2 – Felix Nussbaum, German Jewish surrealist painter (in Auschwitz concentration camp) (b. 1904)
* August 18 – Hans Mertens, German painter (b. 1906)
* September 3 – William Logsdail, English landscape, portrait and genre painter (b. 1859)
* September 27
** Aristide Maillol, French sculptor (b. 1861)
** Sergey Prokudin-Gorsky, Russian-born color photographer (b. 1863)
** David Dougal Williams, British painter (b. 1888)
* October 14 – Marko Murat, Serbian painter (b. 1864)
* October 21 – Hilma af Klint, Swedish abstract painter and mystic (b. 1862)
* November 22 – Sir George Clausen, English artist (b. 1852)
* December 10 – Miklós Ligeti, Hungarian sculptor (b. 1871)
* December 13 – Wassily Kandinsky, Russian abstract painter (b. 1866)
* December 24 – Alfred Drury, English sculptor (b. 1856)
* Undated – Esther Kenworthy Waterhouse, English flower painter (b. 1857)

See also

* 1944 in fine arts of the Soviet Union

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:1944 In Art

Years of the 20th century in art
1940s in art