Events

March 17 – In Washington, D.C., the National Gallery of Art is officially opened by President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
July 14 – American art collector Peggy Guggenheim and German painter Max Ernst arrive in New York City, fleeing occupied Europe.
August – Evacuated paintings from the National Gallery in London are moved to underground storage at a slate quarry beneath Manod Mawr in North Wales.^[1]
October 24 – English artist Brian Stonehouse is captured as a Special Operations Executive agent in France.^[2]
October 31 – Work ceases on sculpting Mount Rushmore National Memorial in the United States, continued by Lincoln Borglum after the death in March of his father Gutzon Borglum.
December 8 – The exhibition American Negro Art: Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries opens in Edith Halpert's Downtown Gallery in New York City.
December 30 – Peggy Guggenheim marries the exiled Max Ernst in Virginia.
Ettore DeGrazia's work appears for the first time in Arizona Highways magazine.
African-American painter Jacob Lawrence completes his Migration Series.
German-Jewish painter Charlotte Salomon, in hiding in the south of France, begins the autobiographical series of paintings Leben? oder Theater?: Ein Singspiel ("Life? or Theater?: A Song-play").
Indiana University Art Museum established in Bloomington.
The Art Center in La Jolla established in California.

Awards

April 13 – Jean-Marc Reiser, French comics artist (d. 1983)
May 23 – Martin Puryear, American sculptor
June 7 – Tony Ray-Jones, English photographer (d. 1972)
July 12 – Richard Tuttle, American postminimalist sculptor, painter and installation artist
July 22 – Vaughn Bodē, American underground comix, graphic design and graffiti artist (d. 1975)
August 29 – Ugo Nespolo, Italian painter and filmmaker
September 20 – Dale Chihuly, American glass sculptor.^[5]
September 24 – Linda McCartney, née Eastman, American music photographer (d. 1998)
December 6 – Bruce Nauman, American installation and video artist
December 31 – Robert Lenkiewicz, English painter (d. 2002)
date unknown
- Mary Kelly, American conceptual artist
- James Coleman, Irish installation and video artist
- Irene Avaalaaqiaq Tiktaalaaq, Canadian Inuit artist

January 10 – John Lavery, Irish painter and war artist (b. 1856)^[6]
February 6 – Maximilien Luce, French painter (b. 1858)
March 6 – Gutzon Borglum, American sculptor (b. 1867)
March 30 – Bertha Jaques, American etcher (b. 1863)
April 14 – Guillermo Kahlo, German-Mexican photographer (b. 1871)
April 16 – Émile Bernard, French Post-Impressionist painter (b. 1868)
October 25 – Robert Delaunay, French painter (b. 1885)
November 7 – Frank Pick, English transport administrator and patron of art and design (b. 1878)
December 3 – Pavel Filonov, Russian painter and poet (b. 1883)
December 5 – Amrita Sher-Gil, Indian painter (b. 1913)
December 30 – El Lissitzky, Russian designer, architect and photographer (b. 1890)
date unknown – William Jacob Baer, American miniature painter (b. 1860)