Login
Login

1939 in art

{{Short description|none}}

{{Year nav topic5|1939|art}}

Events from the year 1939 in art.

Events

  • c. February 1 – Manchester painter L. S. Lowry's first solo London show, "Paintings of the Midlands" (sic.), opens at the Lefevre Gallery.{{cite news|title=L. S. Lowry|newspaper=Birmingham Mail|date=11 February 1939|page=10}} In October, Lowry's mother dies without appreciating his growing success.
  • March 20 – The Berlin Fire Brigade is ordered to burn around 5000 works of graphic art considered by the ruling Nazi Party in Germany to be "degenerate art" and which have little market value.{{cite book|last=Grosshans|first=Henry|year=1983|title=Hitler and the Artists|location=New York|publisher=Holmes & Meyer|isbn=0-8419-0746-3|page=113}}{{cite web|url=http://www.olinda.com/ArtAndIdeas/lectures/ArtWeDontLike/entarteteKunst.htm|title=Entartete Kunst|publisher=Olinda.com|first=Werner|last=Hammerstingl|year=1998|accessdate=2013-12-28}}
  • April 24 – Royal Society of Marine Artists in the UK holds its firset meeting.{{cite book|title=A Celebration of Marine Art: Fifty Years of the Royal Society of Marine Artists|publisher=Blandford|year=1996|isbn=9780713725643}}
  • May
  • The expulsion of Salvador Dalí from the Surrealist movement is announced.{{Cite web |url=https://www.sothebys.com/en/articles/21-facts-about-salvador-dali%3f_amp=true |title=21 Facts About Salvador Dalí | Impressionist & Modern Art | Sotheby's |access-date=2020-11-11 |archive-date=2021-05-01 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210501135415/https://www.sothebys.com/en/articles/21-facts-about-salvador-dali?_amp=true |url-status=dead }}
  • Release of Detective Comics #27, the debut of Batman.
  • June – Peggy Guggenheim closes her Guggenheim Jeune gallery at 30 Cork Street in London, abandons her plan for a modern art gallery in the city, and in August moves to Paris.{{cite book|first=Francine|last=Prose|authorlink=Francine Prose|title=Peggy Guggenheim: the shock of the new|url=https://archive.org/details/peggyguggenheims0000pros|url-access=registration|location=New Haven|publisher=Yale University Press|year=2015|isbn=978-0-300-20348-6}}
  • June 30 – Degenerate Art auction held on behalf of the Nazi German authorities in Lucerne.{{cite news|last=Pramstaller|first=Christopher|date=2014-11-06|title=Als Hitler "entartete Kunst" verscherbeln ließ|url=https://www.zeit.de/zustimmung?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.zeit.de%2Fkultur%2Fkunst%2F2013-11%2FRaubkunst-Handel-Nazi-Deutschland%2Fseite-2|access-date=2021-12-12|work=Die Zeit}}
  • July – English painters Kenneth Hall and his lover Basil Rakoczi of The White Stag group move from London to Ireland to avoid conscription.
  • August 23–September 2 – Most paintings from the National Gallery in London are evacuated to Wales.{{cite book|first=Suzanne|last=Bosman|title=The National Gallery in Wartime|location=London|publisher=National Gallery Company|year=2008|isbn=978-1-85709-424-4|page=25}}
  • August 25 – Ben Nicholson and Barbara Hepworth move from London to settle near St Ives, Cornwall, effectively establishing the St Ives School of abstract avant-garde artists. Soon afterwards they are joined there by Naum Gabo. In 1940 Henry Moore takes over Hepworth's London studio.{{cite book|first=Caroline|last=Maclean|title=Circles and Squares: the lives and art of the Hampstead Modernists|location=London|publisher=Bloomsbury Publishing|year=2020|isbn=978-1-4088-8969-5}}
  • September – Artworks from the Louvre and other French museums are evacuated to the Château de Chambord.
  • October 18–November 18 – Exhibition "Contemporary Unknown American Painters" at the Museum of Modern Art (New York) introduces Grandma Moses to the public.
  • November 6 – Mexican painters' Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera's brief divorce is finalized.
  • November 7 – The War Artists' Advisory Committee of the Ministry of Information (United Kingdom) is appointed, following a scheme put forward by Sir Kenneth Clark on August 29, first meeting on November 23 to decide which war artists it will employ.
  • November 15 – Picasso retrospective curated by Alfred H. Barr, Jr. and staged jointly by the Museum of Modern Art (New York) and the Art Institute of Chicago opens.
  • December 14 – A 'Scheme for recording changing aspects of Britain' which will employ British watercolour painters during World War II is put forward by Sir Kenneth Clark for support by the Pilgrim Trust.{{cite book|editor=Saunders, Gill|title=Recording Britain|location=London|publisher=V&A|year=2011|isbn=978-1-85177-661-0}}
  • First of the Madeline books, illustrated by Ludwig Bemelmans.
  • Harvey Fite begins work on his environmental sculpture Opus 40 at Saugerties, New York.

Awards

Works

{{See also|Category:1939 sculptures}}

Births

Deaths

See also

References

{{reflist}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:1939 In Art}}

Category:Years of the 20th century in art

Category:1930s in art