1921 in art

Events from the year 1921 in art.

Events

• March – Puhl & Wagner are contracted to decorate the interior of the Golden Hall (Stockholm City Hall) with neo-Byzantine mosaics designed by Einar Forseth.
• September–October – 5x5=25 abstract art exhibition held in Moscow.
• unknown dates
  • The first of the Western Front demarcation stones, designed by Paul Moreau-Vauthier, are erected in France and Belgium. ^[1]
  • The experimental short documentary film Manhatta is shot by painter Charles Sheeler and photographer Paul Strand in New York City.
  • Thomas Gainsborough's c. 1770 portrait The Blue Boy from the collection of the Duke of Westminster is sold by dealer Joseph Duveen to California magnate Henry E. Huntington for $728,800 (£182,200; equivalent to $12.69 million in 2024), according to Duveen's bill, a record price for any painting at this time. ^[2]
  • André Delatte opens his glasswares studio in Nancy.
  • Simon Rodia begins construction of the Watts Towers in Los Angeles.

Awards

• Archibald Prize: W B McInnes – Desbrowe Annear

Works

See also: Category:1921 sculptures

• Carlo Carrà – The Engineer's Lover
• Dora Carrington – Farm at Watendlath
• Charles Demuth – Incense of a New Church
• Guy Pène du Bois – An American Oriental
• Marcel Duchamp – Why Not Sneeze, Rose Sélavy? (assisted readymade)
• Max Ernst – The Elephant Celebes
• Jean-Léon Gérôme - Matoax
• Lady Feodora Gleichen – 37th (British) Division memorial (Monchy-le-Preux, France)
• Daniel Chester French – Statue of the Marquis de Lafayette
• J. W. Godward – Megilla
• Duncan Grant – Bathers by the Pond
• Auguste Herbin – Le Cateau-Cambrésis
• Edward Hopper – Girl at Sewing Machine
• Wassily Kandinsky - Weisses Oval (White Oval) ^[3]
• Seán Keating – Men of the South
• Ernst Ludwig Kirchner
  • Two Brothers
  • View of Basel and the Rhine
• Boris Kustodiev – Portrait of Chaliapin
• Fernand Léger
  • Man and Woman
  • Still Life with a Beer Mug
• Wyndham Lewis – Mr Wyndham Lewis as a Tyro
• Sir Bertram Mackennal – Bronze equestrian statue of King Edward VII (Waterloo Place, London)
• Piet Mondrian
  • Composition with Red, Yellow and Blue
  • Tableau I
• Edvard Munch – Model by the Wicker Chair ^[4]
• Alfred Munnings – The Red Prince Mare
• Francis Picabia
  • The Cacodylic Eye
  • Cannibale
• Pablo Picasso
  • Reading the Letter
  • Three Musicians (two versions)
  • Three Women at the Spring
• Man Ray (with Erik Satie) – The Gift (readymade sculpture)
• Stanley Spencer
  • Christ's Entry into Jerusalem
  • Crucifixion
• Félix Vallotton – Femme nue dormant au bord de l'eau ^[5]
• Han van Meegeren – Hertje ("The fawn")
• Owe Zerge - Victoria Mortis ^[6]

Publications

• Paul Sérusier – ABC de la peinture ^[7]

Births

January to June

• January 1 – César Baldaccini, French sculptor (d. 1998)
• January 3 – Bill Gold, American graphic designer (d. 2018) ^[8]
• January 14 – Norris Embry, American neo-expressionist painter (d. 1981)
• January 24 – Sybil Connolly, Welsh-Irish fashion designer (d. 1998) ^[9]
• January 27 – Georges Mathieu, French abstract painter (d. 2012)
• February 2 – Pietro Cascella, Italian painter and sculptor (d. 2008)
• February 5 – Ken Adam, German-born British film set designer (d. 2016)
• February 13 – Louis Féraud, French fashion designer and artist (d. 1999)
• February 20 – Michael Ayrton, English sculptor, graphic artist and writer (d. 1975)
• February 22 – Cecil King, Irish abstract-minimalist painter (d. 1986)
• February 23 – John Latham, Zambian conceptual artist (d. 2006)
• March 2 – Ernst Haas, Austrian photographer (d. 1986)
• March 13 – Al Jaffee, American cartoonist (d. 2023)
• March 28 – Norman Bluhm, American painter (d. 1999)
• April 21 – Dimitrije Bašičević, Serbian painter and sculptor (d. 1987)
• April 23 – William Brice, American painter and teacher (d. 2008)
• April 25 – Karel Appel, Dutch painter, sculptor and poet (d. 2006)
• May 18 – Joan Eardley, British painter (d. 1963)
• May 29 – Enzo Plazzotta, Italian-born British sculptor (d. 1981)
• June 20 – Fiore de Henriquez, Italian-born British sculptor (d. 2004)

July to December

• July 16
  • Ernst Beyeler, Swiss art dealer and collector (d. 2010)
  • Guy Laroche, French fashion designer (d. 1989)
• July 16 – Boscoe Holder, Trinidadian painter (d. 2007)
• July 17 – Richard Jeranian, Armenian painter, draftsman and lithographer (d. 2019)
• August 4 – Jean Pierre Capron, French painter (d. 1997)
• August 18 – Zdzisław Żygulski, Jr., Polish art historian (d. 2015)
• August 28 – Jean-Philippe Charbonnier, French photographer (d. 2004)
• September 22 – Will Elder, American illustrator and comic book artist (d. 2008)
• September 25 – Jacques Martin, French comics creator (d. 2010)
• September 27 – Jean-Pierre Sudre, French photographer (d. 1997)
• October 26 – Raymond Nasher, American art collector (d. 2007)
• November 12 – Gerson Leiber, American painter, lithographer and sculptor (d. 2018)
• November 17 – Albert Bertelsen, Danish artist (d. 2019)
• November 26 – Françoise Gilot, French watercolorist and ceramicist (d. 2023)

Deaths

• January 18 – Adolf von Hildebrand, sculptor (born 1847)
• January 30 – John Francis Murphy, landscape painter (born 1853)
• February 2 – Antonio Jacobsen, Danish-American maritime artist (born 1850)
• February 3 – William Strang, painter and engraver (born 1859)
• February 4 – Eugène Burnand, Swiss painter (born 1850)
• February 11 – William Blake Richmond, English painter and designer (born 1842)
• February 21 – George Dunlop Leslie, English genre painter (born 1835)
• March 2 – Johann Friedrich Engel, German painter (born 1844)
• March 23 – Jean-Paul Laurens, painter and sculptor (born 1838)
• March 24 – Marcus Stone, painter and illustrator (born 1840)
• March 30 – Franz Benque, photographer (born 1841)
• April 6 – Vardges Sureniants, Armenian painter (born 1860)
• April 30 – Mabel Esplin, English stained-glass artist (born 1874)
• May 5 – William Friese-Greene, photographer and cinematographer (born 1855)
• May 29 – Abbott Handerson Thayer, painter (born 1849)
• June – Frank Enders, painter and etcher (born 1860)
• October 7 – John Thomson, photographer (born 1837)
• November 1 – Francisco Pradilla Ortiz, painter (born 1848)
• November 12 – Fernand Khnopff, Symbolist painter (born 1858)
• November 13 – William Robert Colton, sculptor (born 1867)

References

1. Cooksey, Jon; Murland, Jerry (2013). Battle Lines Ypres: Nieuwpoort to Ploegsteert. Casemate Publishers. p. 393. ISBN   978-1-78303-404-8.
2. Thorpe, James (1994). Henry Edwards Huntington, A Biography. Berkeley: University of California Press. p. 438. ISBN   0520082540. According to a mention in The New York Times 11 November 1921, the purchase price was $640,000. "WolframAlpha conversion".
3. "Weisses Oval (White Oval) | A Legacy of Beauty: The Collection of Sydell Miller Evening Auction". Sotheby's. Retrieved 18 November 2024.
4. "Model by the Wicker Chair". Munchmuseet (Munch Museum). Retrieved 5 March 2021.
5. Deyrolle, François-Marie (February 2008). Les collections du musée d'art moderne et contemporain de la ville de Strasbourg. Strasbourg: Musées de la ville de Strasbourg. p. 84. ISBN   978-2-901833-82-6.
6. "Victoria Mortis by Owe Zerge". artnet. Retrieved 4 December 2025.
7. "ABC de la peinture". Spencer Museum of Art. Retrieved 4 December 2025.
8. McFadden, Robert D. (May 20, 2018). "Bill Gold, 97, Whose Posters Captured Movie Magic, Is Dead". The New York Times. Retrieved May 21, 2018.
9. O'Byrne, Robert (2009). "Connolly, Sybil Veronica" . Dictionary of Irish Biography. doi: 10.3318/dib.001960.v1 . Retrieved 20 January 2022.