1955 in art

Events from the year 1955 in art.

Events

• January 21 – O. Winston Link starts a 5-year personal project to document steam operations on the Norfolk and Western Railway in the United States using flash photography.
• January 26 – A trial establishes that the recently "restored" "medieval" frescoes in St. Mary's Church, Lübeck, are in fact newly painted by Lothar Malskat and an associate.^[1]
• March – A Photographer's Gallery is established in New York City by Roy DeCarava.
• May 17 – The Clark Art Institute opens to the public in Williamstown, Massachusetts.
• June 1 – Première of Billy Wilder's film of The Seven Year Itch featuring an iconic scene of Marilyn Monroe standing on a New York City Subway grating as her white dress (created by Travilla) is blown above her knees.^[2]
• June 27 – Sir Jacob Epstein marries Kathleen Garman.
• October–November – Nikolaus Pevsner delivers this year's series of Reith Lectures on The Englishness of English Art, originally broadcast on BBC radio in the UK.^[3]
• December – Iris Clert Gallery opens in the rue des Beaux-Arts, Paris, and its owner, Iris Clert, first meets Yves Klein.
• date unknown
  • Marcel Duchamp becomes a citizen of the United States.
  • Pablo Picasso finishes painting his Les Femmes d'Alger ("The Women of Algiers") series (inspired by Delacroix), concluding with "Version O" which in 2015 will sell at a world record price for a painting at auction.^[4]
  • British studio potter Alan Caiger-Smith establishes Aldermaston Pottery in England.
  • Enrique Tábara obtains an Ecuadorian government scholarship to study in Spain.

Awards

• Archibald Prize: Ivor Hele – Robert Campbell Esq.

Works

See also: Category:1955 sculptures

• Michael Andrews – Four People Sunbathing (Arts Council England)
• Pietro Annigoni – Portrait of Elizabeth II
• Balthus
  • Girls on the Couch
  • Nude Before a Mirror
• John Brack
  • Collins St., 5 pm
  • The Car
• Edward Burra – Izzy Orts
• Lucien Clergue – Trio des Saltimbanques (photograph)
• Carroll Cloar – My Father Was Big as a Tree
• Pompeo Coppini – Statue of George Washington (bronze, University of Texas at Austin)
• Salvador Dalí – The Sacrament of the Last Supper (National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.) (completed)
• Ben Enwonwu – Anyanwu (sculpture)
• Sir Jacob Epstein – Christ in Majesty (sculpture for Llandaff Cathedral)
• M. C. Escher – lithographs
  • Compass Rose (Order and Chaos II)
  • Convex and Concave
  • Three Worlds
• Alberto Giacometti
  • Diego (approximate date)
  • Grande tête mince
• Oswaldo Guayasamín – El ataúd blanco
• Edward Hopper – South Carolina Morning
• Jasper Johns
  • Flag
  • White Flag
• Willem de Kooning
  • Composition
  • Woman as Landscape
  • Woman-Ochre
• Lee Krasner
  • Bald Eagle
  • Color Totem
• Norman Lewis - Harlem Turns White^[5]
• L. S. Lowry (Tate collection)
  • Industrial Landscape
  • A Young Man
• René Magritte – The Mysteries of the Horizon
• Georg Mayer-Marton — Crucifixion (mosaic and fresco in Roman Catholic Church of Holy Rosary in Fitton Hill, Oldham, England)^[6][7]
• Henry Moore
  • Upright Motive No. 1: Glenkiln Cross
  • Wall Relief no. 1 (carved brick, Bouwcentrum, Rotterdam)
• Sidney Nolan – Ned Kelly
• Pablo Picasso – Don Quixote (sketch for Les Lettres Françaises, August)
• Robert Rauschenberg – Bantam
• Norman Rockwell – Marriage License
• Mark Rothko – Violet Center
• Charles Sheeler – The Web
• Hedda Sterne – New York, N.Y., 1955

Exhibitions

• January – The Family of Man, a photography exhibition curated by Edward Steichen, opens at the Museum of Modern Art, New York.
• October – First public exhibition of Yves Klein's monochrome oil paintings, at Club des Solitaires, Paris.
• November 3–December 18 – Stanley Spencer: a Retrospective Exhibition at the Tate Gallery, London.^[8]
• Le Mouvement at Galerie Denise René, Paris, popularizing kinetic art.
• Exhibition by London members of Groupe Espace, organized by Paule Vézelay at the Royal Festival Hall.

Births

• January 15 – Andreas Gursky, German large format photographer
• January 21 – Jeff Koons, American "kitsch" artist
• February 2 – Madi Phala, South African artist (d. 2007)
• March 10 – Mark Landis, American painter and art forger
• March 24 – Beverly K. Effinger, American painter
• April 5 – Akira Toriyama, Japanese manga and video game artist (d. 2024)
• May 20 – Anton Corbijn, Dutch photographer and videographer
• July 29 – Dave Stevens, American illustrator and comics artist (d. 2008)
• August 2 – PHASE 2 (Lonny Wood), American graffiti artist (d. 2019)
• November 15 – Sergey Voychenko, Belarusian artist and designer (d. 2004)
• undated
  • Manasie Akpaliapik, Canadian Inuk sculptor
  • Mariana Cook, American portrait photographer
  • Miroslav Grčev, Macedonian architect and graphic designer
  • Jaume Plensa, Catalan sculptor
  • Rebecca Salter, English printmaker and multimedia abstract artist, President of the Royal Academy
  • Alexander Sokolov, sculptor working in Spain

Deaths

• January 1 – Maria Bal, Polish model (b. 1879)
• January 7 – Lamorna Birch, English painter (b. 1869)
• February 11 – Olga Khokhlova, Russian-born ballet dancer and estranged wife of Picasso (b. 1891)
• March 9 – Nels N. Alling, Danish-American sculptor (b. 1861)
• March 13 – Evie Hone, Irish painter and stained glass artist (b. 1894)
• March 16 – Nicolas de Staël, Russian-born French impasto painter (b. 1914)
• May 3 – Rudolf Schlichter, German painter (b. 1890)
• May 10 – John Radecki, Polish-born Australian stained glass artist (b. 1865)
• May 11 – Bradley Walker Tomlin, American painter (b. 1899)
• May 23 – Auguste Chabaud, French painter (b. 1882)
• June 1 – Antonio Dattilo Rubbo, Italian-born Australian painter and art teacher (b. 1870)
• June 29 – Max Pechstein, German Expressionist artist (b. 1881)
• August 17 – Fernand Léger, French artist (b. 1881)
• September 19 – Carl Milles, Swedish sculptor (b. 1875)
• September 27 – Leslie Garland Bolling, African American sculptor (b. 1898)
• November 5 – Maurice Utrillo, French painter (b. 1883)
• November 29 – Rene Paul Chambellan, American sculptor (b. 1893)
• December 17 – Dorothea Sharp, English painter (b. 1874)
• December 19 – Alexander Lubimov, Russian artist (b. 1879)
• December 28 – Olive Edis, English photographer (b. 1876)

See also

• 1955 in fine arts of the Soviet Union