1942 in art

• January – Treasures from the new National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. are evacuated by train to the Biltmore Estate at Asheville, North Carolina.
• February 15 – Singapore surrenders to Japanese forces. Among the British troops captured are illustrator Ronald Searle and sculptor Anthony Twentyman.
• March 28–29 – Bombing of St. Mary's Church, Lübeck, destroys Adriaen Isenbrandt's Bröhmse triptych, Jacob van Utrecht's Trinity Altar, Friedrich Overbeck's Entrance of Christ into Jerusalem and Bernt Notke's Gregorsmesse and replica Totentanz, but reveals medieval frescos.
• May 8 – English novelist David Garnett marries painter and writer Angelica Bell, the daughter of painters Duncan Grant (Garnett's lover) and Vanessa Bell.{{cite book|author=Tony Ward|title=Unravelling Sussex: Around the County in Riddles|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wwIzDQAAQBAJ&pg=PT26|year=2016|publisher=History Press|isbn=978-0-7509-6963-5|pages=26}}
• July 27 – A large amount of "degenerate art" including works by Picasso, Dalí, Ernst, Klee, Léger and Miró is destroyed in a bonfire in the gardens of the Galerie nationale du Jeu de Paume in Nazi-occupied Paris.{{cite book|last=Hellman|first=Mallory|title=Let's Go Paris|page=84}}
• October – Michael Ayrton and John Minton exhibit together at the Leicester Galleries in London.{{cite news|title=Young Artists – Exhibition at Leicester Galleries|work=The Times|location=London|date=1942-10-16|page=6}}
• October 14–November 7 – The "First Papers of Surrealism" exhibition, arranged by André Breton and Marcel Duchamp, is held at the Whitelaw Reid Mansion on Madison Avenue in New York City, including Duchamp's His Twine and Breton's Hanging.
• October 20 – The Art of This Century gallery is opened by Peggy Guggenheim at 30 West 57th Street in Manhattan, New York City.
• unknown dates
• Salvador Dalí publishes his autobiography, The Secret Life of Salvador Dalí.
• Horst Rosenthal, whilst in Gurs internment camp, produces Mickey au Camp de Gurs and two other comic books; on September 11 he is murdered on arrival at Auschwitz concentration camp.

• Archibald Prize: William Dargie – Corporal Jim Gordon, VC

File:Nighthawks by Edward Hopper 1942.jpg – Nighthawks (Art Institute of Chicago)]]

{{see also|Category:1942 sculptures}}

• Rita Angus – Portrait (Betty Curnow)
• Thomas Hart Benton – Year of Peril (series)
• George Berry – Statue of Benjamin Franklin (sculpture, Franklin High School (Portland, Oregon))
• Pierre Bonnard – Red Roofs in Cannet
• Paul-Émile Borduas – Abstraction No 7
• Russell Drysdale – Soldier
• Richard Eurich
• [http://collections.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/13059.html HMS Revenge Leaving Harbour]
• The Raid on the Bruneval Radio-location Station
• Marie Hadad – Portrait of Mr. Dahesh (Dahesh Museum of Art)
• Edward Hopper
• Dawn in Pennsylvania
• Nighthawks{{cite book|first=Andrew|last=Dickos|title=Street with No Name: A History of the Classic American Film Noir|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=S9_XQteQX9cC&pg=PT227|year=2002|publisher=University Press of Kentucky|isbn=978-0-8131-3749-0|pages=227}}
• Dame Laura Knight – A Balloon Site, Coventry
• Helen Levitt - New York City (photograph){{Cite web|url=https://whitney.org/collection/works/11504|title=Helen Levitt | New York City}}
• Jacques Lipchitz – Theseus (sculpture)
• L. S. Lowry
• After the Blitz
• [https://www.artuk.org/discover/artworks/blitzed-site-162337# Blitzed Site]
• Roberto Matta
• The Apples we Know
• Composition in Magenta: The End of Everything
• The Disasters of Mysticism
• The Hanged Man
• Paul Nash – The Archer
• Frank Newbould – Your Britain, Fight for it Now (poster series)
• Méret Oppenheim – Sun, Moon, Stars
• Gordon Parks – American Gothic, Washington, D.C. (photograph)
• Pablo Picasso
• Portrait of Dora Maar
• Woman in a Fish Hat (Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam)
• Diego Rivera – The Flower Seller
• Ruskin Spear – We Can Take It
• Dorothea Tanning – Birthday (Philadelphia Museum of Art){{cite web | url=https://artondemand.philamuseum.org/detail/476664/tanning-birthday-1942 | title=Birthday, 1942 by Dorothea Tanning - Paper and Canvas Print - Philadelphia Museum of Art - Custom Prints Store }}
• Carel Weight – Recruit's Progress – Medical Inspection
• Andrew Wyeth – Winter Fields
• Philip Zec – The price of petrol has been increased by one penny – Official (political cartoon)

• January 8 – George Passmore, English artist partnering with Gilbert (Proesch)
• February 2
• Alonzo Davis, African American artist
• Graham Nash, English-born rock singer-songwriter and photographer
• February 10 – Lawrence Weiner, American conceptual artist (d. 2021)
• February 28 – Oliviero Toscani, Italian photographer{{cite book|author=Lorella Pagnucco Salvemini|title=United Colors: The Benetton Campaigns|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HgxMAQAAIAAJ|year=2002|publisher=Scriptum Editions|isbn=978-1-902686-22-6|page=9}}
• March 2 – Jonathan Borofsky, American painter, sculptor and installation artist
• March 16 – Danny Lyon, American documentary photographer
• March 20 – Peter Schjeldahl, 80, American art critic (The New Yorker, The New York Times) (d.2022)
• March 31
• Dan Graham, American conceptual and performance artist (d. 2021)
• David Medalla, Filipino-born sculptor
• May 20 – Anna Maria Maiolino, Italian-born Brazilian artist
• August 18? – Charlotte Johnson Wahl, born Charlotte Fawcett, English painter (d. 2021)
• October 6 – Dan Christensen, American abstract painter (d.2007)
• October 29 – Bob Ross, American painter and television presenter (d.1995)
• November 7 – Stan Rice, American poet and artist (d.2002)
• December 1 – William Feaver, English art critic and historian
• date unknown
• Susan Crile, American painter
• De Es Schwertberger, born Dieter Schwertberger, Austrian painter

• January – Albert Moulton Foweraker, English painter (b. 1873)
• January 5 – Tina Modotti, Italian photographer and model (b. 1896)
• January 6 – John Bernard Flannagan, American sculptor (b. 1895) (suicide)
• January 22 – Walter Sickert, British Impressionist painter (b. 1860){{cite book|author=Walter Sickert|title=Walter Sickert: The Complete Writings on Art|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=XFOvTvg3j84C&pg=PR39|date=9 January 2003|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-926169-7|pages=39}}
• January 23 – Bogdan Šuput, Serbian painter (b. 1914)
• January 27 – Petar Dobrović, Serbian painter (b. 1890)
• February 9 – Anna Elizabeth Klumpke, American portrait and genre painter (b. 1856)
• February 12 – Grant Wood, American painter (b. 1892){{cite book|author=Gerry Souter|title=American Realism|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=XXOlCgAAQBAJ&pg=PT286|date=15 September 2015|publisher=Parkstone International|isbn=978-1-78310-767-4|pages=286}}
• February 16 – Giovanni Bartolena, Italian painter (b. 1886){{cite web|url=https://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/giovanni-bartolena|title=BARTOLENA, Giovanni|publisher=Treccani|website=Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani|author=Giorgio di Genova|access-date=6 April 2021}}
• February 20 – Herbert Dicksee, English canine painter (b. 1862){{cite book|author=Ryno Greenwall|title=Artists & Illustrators of the Anglo-Boer War|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6dYvAQAAIAAJ|year=1992|publisher=Fernwood Press|isbn=978-0-9583154-2-5|page=127}}
• April 18 - Adolphe Valette, French painter (b. 1876)
• April 18 – Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, founder of the Whitney Museum of American Art (b. 1875)
• May 23 – C. R. Ashbee, English designer (b. 1863)
• June 18 – Sutherland Macdonald, English tattoo artist (b. 1860)
• June 30 – William Henry Jackson, American photographer (b. 1843){{cite web |url=https://www.loc.gov/pictures/collection/wtc/jackson.html |title=William Henry Jackson (1843-1942), Career Chronology |publisher=The Library of Congress |year=2010 |access-date=29 September 2010}}
• August 10 – Albert Guillaume, French painter and caricaturist (b. 1873)
• August 30 – Sava Šumanović, Serbian painter (b. 1896)
• September 2 – Eric Ravilious, English painter (b. 1903) (lost on active service as a war artist){{cite book|author=Oxford University Press|title=Benezit Dictionary of British Graphic Artists and Illustrators|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=05C02RhJZCkC&pg=RA1-PA252|date=21 June 2012|publisher=OUP USA|isbn=978-0-19-992305-2|pages=252}}
• September 7
• Cecilia Beaux, American portrait painter (b. 1855){{cite book|author=Alice A. Carter|title=Cecilia Beaux: A Modern Painter in the Gilded Age|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=axHrAAAAMAAJ|year=2005|publisher=Random House Incorporated|isbn=978-0-8478-2708-4|page=191}}
• Albert Julius Olsson, English marine painter (b. 1864)
• November 24 – Bohumil Kafka, Czech sculptor (b. 1878)
• December 11 - Séraphine Louis, French painter (b. 1864)
• December 19 – T. F. Šimon, Czech painter (b. 1877)
• date unknown
• Nampeyo, Hopi ceramicist (b. 1860)

• 1942 in fine arts of the Soviet Union

{{reflist}}

Category:Years of the 20th century in art

Category:1940s in art