Events

January 8 – Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa is exhibited in the United States for the first (and only) time, for a period of four weeks, at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. During this time it was viewed by over half a million people.^[1]
September – The David Mirvish Gallery is opened in Toronto by David Mirvish.
November 17 – Museo Bodoniano opens in Parma, Italy.
Museum of Contemporary Art (Skopje) opens in Yugoslavia.
First Pirelli Calendar (for 1964), photographed by Robert Freeman in Majorca, issued in the United Kingdom. His portrait of The Beatles is used on the cover of their album With the Beatles (released November 22).

Awards

January 20 – Mark Ryden, American painter
April 4 – Martin Firrell, French-born British public artist^[4]
April 20 – Dame Rachel Whiteread, English sculptor^[5]
May 16 – Jon Coffelt, American painter, sculptor and book artist
May 31 – Wesley Willis, American artist and musician (d. 2003)
June 24 – Mike Wieringo, American comic book artist (d. 2007)^[6]
July 20 – Ciruelo Cabral, Argentine fantasy artist
August 16 – Stevenson Magloire, painter of the School of Saint Soleil (d. 1994)
October 6 - Romero Britto, Brazilian artist^[7]
date unknown
- Marco Evaristti, Chilean sculptor
- Anya Gallaccio, British installation artist^[8]
- Sophie Ryder, English sculptor
- Bob and Roberta Smith (Patrick Brill), English slogan painter

February 3 – Piero Manzoni, Italian artist (b. 1933)
February 8 – Fortunino Matania, Italian-born illustrator and war artist (b. 1881)
February 14 – Hilda Vīka, Latvian painter (born 1897)
February 27 – Vladimir Konashevich, Russian graphic artist (b. 1888).
March 1 – Felice Casorati, Italian painter (b. 1883)
June 9 – Jacques Villon, French Cubist painter and printmaker (b. 1875)
June 20 – Manuel Benedito, Spanish painter (b. 1875)
July 16 – Antonio Donghi, Italian painter (b. 1897)
July 23 – Aleksandr Gerasimov, Soviet socialist realist painter (b. 1881)
August 11 – Alois Arnegger, Austrian painter (b. 1879)
August 16 – Joan Eardley, British painter (b. 1921)
August 31 – Georges Braque, French painter and sculptor (b. 1882)
September 11 – Suzanne Duchamp, French Dadaist painter and sister of Marcel Duchamp (b. 1889)
September 19 – David Low, New Zealand-born editorial cartoonist (b. 1891)
October 20 – Everett Warner, American impressionist painter and printmaker (b. 1877)