1981 in art

The year 1981 in art involved some significant events and new works.

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

Works

• Tony Cragg – Britain as Seen from the North
• John Doubleday – Statue of Charlie Chaplin (Leicester Square, London)
• Don Eckland – Emergence (bronze, Eugene, Oregon)
• Bryan Hunt – Arch Falls (bronze, Houston, Texas)
• Nabil Kanso – Dreamvision series of paintings completed
• Ellsworth Kelly – Curve XXIV (sculpture, Seattle)
• Odd Nerdrum – Twilight
• Helmut Newton – Sie kommen! ("They're coming!", photographic diptych; published in French Vogue, November)
• Richard Serra – Tilted Arc, Federal Plaza, New York City (dismantled 1989)
• Andy Warhol – Myths series
• Aubrey Williams – Shostakovich series of paintings completed

Births

• 15 April – Seth Wulsin, American artist.
• 4 November – Paul Tucker, Canadian visual artist and graphic novel and webcomic illustrator.

Deaths

• 19 January – Francesca Woodman, 22, American photographer
• 19 June – Lotte Reiniger, German silhouette animator and film director (b.1899).
• 29 June – Russell Drysdale, Australian artist (b.1912).
• 8 July – Isaac Soyer, Russian-born American painter, (b.1902).
• 7 September – Christy Brown, Irish author, painter and poet (b.1932).
• 12 October – Enzo Plazzotta, Italian-born British sculptor (b.1921).
• 20 October – Annot, German painter (b.1894).
• 17 November – Nano Reid, Irish painter (b.1905).
• 22 November – Corrado Parducci, Italian-American architectural sculptor (b.1900).

See also

• 1981 in fine arts of the Soviet Union