1969 in art

Events from the year 1969 in art.

Events

• February 2 – Ten paintings are defaced in New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art.
• August 8 – Iain Macmillan photographs the cover picture for The Beatles' album Abbey Road in London.
• October 5 – Monty Python's Flying Circus is broadcast for the first time on BBC Television, ^[1] with Terry Gilliam's animations.
• October 18 – Caravaggio's Nativity with St. Francis and St. Lawrence (c.1609) is stolen from its frame in the Oratory of Saint Lawrence in Palermo, Sicily; it has not been recovered as of 2020.
• November 19 – The Apollo 12 lunar module lands on the Moon with astronaut and artist Alan Bean; American artist Forrest "Frosty" Myers claims to have smuggled the art piece Moon Museum onto a leg of the module which will remain on the surface. ^[2]
• c. December – The music and performance art collective COUM Transmissions is formed in England by Genesis P-Orridge.
• Late – Andy Warhol, John Wilcock, and Gerard Malanga co-found the magazine Interview .
• Opening of the Oakland Museum of California, designed by Kevin Roche.

Exhibitions

• January 9 – In Washington, D.C., the Smithsonian Institution displays the art of Winslow Homer for 6 weeks. ^[3]
• December 19 - The exhibition Alvin Loving: Psintings opens at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City marking the frst solo exhibition given to a black artist in the institution's history. ^[4]
• Most of the paintings from the following year's "Lyrical Abstraction" exhibition are displayed at the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, marking a significant return to expressivity in American abstract painting. For two years the exhibition travels throughout the U.S. including to the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City. ^{[5] [6]}

Awards

• Archibald Prize: Ray Crooke – George Johnston
• John Moores Painting Prize - Richard Hamilton and Mary Martin for "Toaster" and "Cross" (respectively) ^{[7] [8]}

Works

See also: Category:1969 paintings and Category:1969 sculptures

• Kenojuak Ashevak – The Owl
• Michael Ayrton – The Arkville Minotaur
• Francis Bacon – Three Studies of Lucian Freud
• Thomas Bass – Australian Seal (bronze, Washington, D.C.)
• Edward Bawden – Victoria tile motif on London Underground's Victoria line
• Fernando Botero - Protestant Family
• Alexander Calder – La Grande Vitesse (sculpture)
• Christo and Jeanne Claude - "Wrapped Coast" in Little Bay, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia ^[9]
• Mai Dantsig – Partisan Ballad
• Helen Frankenthaler – Slice of Stone Itself
• Frank Frazetta – Egyptian Queen
• Milton Glaser - Speed City ^[10]
• Anna Hyatt Huntington - Equestrian statue of Israel Putnam at Putnam Memorial State Park in Redding, Connecticut (dedicated)
• Jess Collins - If All the World Were Paper and All the Water Sink ^[11]
• Allen Jones – Hatstand, Table and Chair (sculptures)
• Ronnie Landfield – Diamond Lake
• André Lufwa - "Batteur de tam-tam" ^[12]
• Joan Mitchell - Sans Neige ^[13]
• Kanda Nissho – Snow Farm
• Pablo Picasso- The Kiss
• Enzo Plazzotta – Baigneuse
• Jean-Paul Riopelle – La Joute (public sculptural installation, Montreal)
• Will Roberts – Redberth Village, Pembrokeshire
• Alexander Semionov – Leningrad in the Morning
• Victor Teterin – Sredne-Podjacheskaya Street in Leningrad
• Nikolai Timkov – Russian Winter
• Hans Unger – Oxford Circus and Green Park tile motifs on London Underground's Victoria line

Exhibitions

• December 30 until March 1, 1970 - Spaces at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City (Dan Flavin, Larry Bell, Robert Morris, Franz Erhard Walther, and Pulsa). ^[14]

Births

• January 5 – Marilyn Manson, American rock musician and painter
• February 7 – Andrew Micallef, Maltese painter and musician ^[15]
• July 11 – Abigail McLellan, British painter (d. 2009)
• October 5 – Chantal Joffe, English painter
• November 26 – Kara Walker, African American artist
• date unknown
  • Boushra Almutawakel, Yemeni photographer ^[16]
  • Steven Claydon, English sculptor, installation artist and musician
  • Invader, French urban artist
  • Patricia Martín, Mexican curator

Deaths

• January 20 – Luigi Del Bianco, Italian-born American sculptor (b. 1892)
• January 29 – Edward Marshall Boehm, American Expressionist sculptor (b. 1913)
• March 14 – Ben Shahn, Lithuanian-born American painter and photographer (b. 1898)
• March 17 – Daniel Vázquez Díaz, Spanish painter (b. 1882)
• May 11 – T. K. Padmini, Keralan feminist painter (b. 1940; d. in childbirth)
• June 12 – Aleksandr Deyneka, Russian painter and sculptor (b. 1899)
• July 5 – Walter Gropius, German-born architect (b. 1883)
• July 9 – Emerik Feješ, Hungarian and Serbian painter (b. 1904)
• July 25 – Otto Dix, German painter and printmaker (b. 1891)
• August – Doris Brabham Hatt, English modernist painter (b. 1890)
• September 15 – Edith Barry, American sculptor, painter, illustrator and designer (b. 1883)
• November 21 – Norman Lindsay, Australian sculptor and cartoonist (born 1879)

See also

• 1969 in fine arts of the Soviet Union

References

1. Penguin Pocket On This Day. Penguin Reference Library. 2006. ISBN   0-14-102715-0.
2. Allen, Greg (2008-02-28). "The Moon Museum". greg.org: the making of. greg.org. Retrieved 2011-11-07.
3. "Winslow Homer's Graphic Art". Smithsonian Archives. Retrieved 14 August 2025.
4. "Alvin Loving, Paintings, Whitney Museum of American Art, Pamphlet, 1970". gallery98.org.
5. Aldrich, Larry (November–December 1969). "Young Lyrical Painters". Art in America. 57 (6): 104–113.
6. "Lyrical Abstraction". The Aldrich. April 5, 1970. Retrieved 14 August 2025.
7. "Richard Hamilton - Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool museums". Liverpoolmuseums.org.uk. Retrieved 28 November 2018.
8. "Cross by Mary Martin (1907-1969) - Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool museums". Liverpoolmuseums.org.uk. Retrieved 28 November 2018.
9. "Wrapped Coast".
10. "R.I.P Milton Glaser". 28 June 2020.
11. https://www.famsf.org/artworks/if-all-the-world-were-paper-and-all-the-water-sink
12. «Le Batteur de tam-tam» de Lufwa, une grande attraction à la Foire Internationale de Kinshasa - Congoforum.be
13. Scott, Chadd. "'Joan Mitchell' Is Everything At San Francisco Museum Of Modern Art". Forbes. Retrieved 2022-01-19.
14. "Spaces - Dec 30, 1969–Mar 1, 1970 - MoMA". www.moma.org.
15. Schiavone, Michael J. (2009). Dictionary of Maltese Biographies Vol. II G-Z. Pietà: Pubblikazzjonijiet Indipendenza. p. 1126. ISBN   9789993291329.
16. "Boushra Almutawakel, Strata, 2008". School of Oriental and African Studies. Archived from the original on 3 March 2016. Retrieved 18 June 2012.