1955 in art

Events from the year 1955 in art.

Events

January 21 – O. Winston Link starts a 5-year personal project to document steam operations on the Norfolk and Western Railway in the United States using flash photography.
January 26 – A trial establishes that the recently "restored" "medieval" frescoes in St. Mary's Church, Lübeck, are in fact newly painted by Lothar Malskat and an associate.
March – A Photographer's Gallery is established in New York City by Roy DeCarava.
May 17 – The Clark Art Institute opens to the public in Williamstown, Massachusetts.
June 1 – Première of Billy Wilder's film of The Seven Year Itch featuring an iconic scene of Marilyn Monroe standing on a New York City Subway grating as her white dress (created by Travilla) is blown above her knees.
June 27 – Sir Jacob Epstein marries Kathleen Garman.
October–November – Nikolaus Pevsner delivers this year's series of Reith Lectures on The Englishness of English Art, originally broadcast on BBC radio in the UK.
December – Iris Clert Gallery opens in the rue des Beaux-Arts, Paris, and its owner, Iris Clert, first meets Yves Klein.
date unknown
- Marcel Duchamp becomes a citizen of the United States.
- Pablo Picasso finishes painting his Les Femmes d'Alger ("The Women of Algiers") series (inspired by Delacroix), concluding with "Version O" which in 2015 will sell at a world record price for a painting at auction.
- British studio potter Alan Caiger-Smith establishes Aldermaston Pottery in England.
- Enrique Tábara obtains an Ecuadorian government scholarship to study in Spain.

Awards

Archibald Prize: Ivor Hele – Robert Campbell Esq.

Works

Michael Andrews – Four People Sunbathing (Arts Council England)
Pietro Annigoni – Portrait of Elizabeth II
Balthus
- Girls on the Couch
- Nude Before a Mirror
John Brack
- Collins St., 5 pm
- The Car
Edward Burra – Izzy Orts
Lucien Clergue – Trio des Saltimbanques (photograph)
Carroll Cloar – My Father Was Big as a Tree
Pompeo Coppini – Statue of George Washington (bronze, University of Texas at Austin)
Salvador Dalí – The Sacrament of the Last Supper (National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.) (completed)
Ben Enwonwu – Anyanwu (sculpture)
Sir Jacob Epstein – Christ in Majesty (sculpture for Llandaff Cathedral)
M. C. Escher – lithographs
- Compass Rose (Order and Chaos II)
- Convex and Concave
- Three Worlds
Alberto Giacometti
- Diego (approximate date)
- Grande tête mince
Oswaldo Guayasamín – El ataúd blanco
Edward Hopper – South Carolina Morning
Jasper Johns
- Flag
- White Flag
Willem de Kooning
- Composition
- Woman as Landscape
- Woman-Ochre
Lee Krasner
- Bald Eagle
- Color Totem
L. S. Lowry (Tate collection)
- Industrial Landscape
- A Young Man
René Magritte – The Mysteries of the Horizon
Georg Mayer-Marton — Crucifixion (mosaic and fresco in Roman Catholic Church of Holy Rosary in Fitton Hill, Oldham, England)
Henry Moore
- Upright Motive No. 1: Glenkiln Cross
- Wall Relief no. 1 (carved brick, Bouwcentrum, Rotterdam)
Sidney Nolan – Ned Kelly
Pablo Picasso – Don Quixote (sketch for Les Lettres Françaises, August)
Robert Rauschenberg – Bantam
Norman Rockwell – Marriage License
Mark Rothko – Violet Center
Charles Sheeler – The Web
Hedda Sterne – New York, N.Y., 1955

Exhibitions

January – The Family of Man, a photography exhibition curated by Edward Steichen, opens at the Museum of Modern Art, New York.
October – First public exhibition of Yves Klein's monochrome oil paintings, at Club des Solitaires, Paris.
November 3–December 18 – Stanley Spencer: a Retrospective Exhibition at the Tate Gallery, London.
Le Mouvement at Galerie Denise René, Paris, popularizing kinetic art.
Exhibition by London members of Groupe Espace, organized by Paule Vézelay at the Royal Festival Hall.

Births

January 15 – Andreas Gursky, German large format photographer
January 21 – Jeff Koons, American "kitsch" artist
February 2 – Madi Phala, South African artist (d. 2007)
March 10 – Mark Landis, American painter and art forger
March 24 – Beverly K. Effinger, American painter
April 5 – Akira Toriyama, Japanese manga and video game artist (d. 2024)
May 20 – Anton Corbijn, Dutch photographer and videographer
July 29 – Dave Stevens, American illustrator and comics artist (d. 2008)
August 2 – PHASE 2 (Lonny Wood), American graffiti artist (d. 2019)
November 15 – Sergey Voychenko, Belarusian artist and designer (d. 2004)
undated
- Manasie Akpaliapik, Canadian Inuk sculptor
- Mariana Cook, American portrait photographer
- Miroslav Grčev, Macedonian architect and graphic designer
- Jaume Plensa, Catalan sculptor
- Rebecca Salter, English printmaker and multimedia abstract artist, President of the Royal Academy
- Alexander Sokolov, sculptor working in Spain

Deaths

January 1 – Maria Bal, Polish model (b. 1879)
January 7 – Lamorna Birch, English painter (b. 1869)
February 11 – Olga Khokhlova, Russian-born ballet dancer and estranged wife of Picasso (b. 1891)
March 9 – Nels N. Alling, Danish-American sculptor (b. 1861)
March 13 – Evie Hone, Irish painter and stained glass artist (b. 1894)
March 16 – Nicolas de Staël, Russian-born French impasto painter (b. 1914)
May 3 – Rudolf Schlichter, German painter (b. 1890)
May 10 – John Radecki, Polish-born Australian stained glass artist (b. 1865)
May 11 – Bradley Walker Tomlin, American painter (b. 1899)
May 23 – Auguste Chabaud, French painter (b. 1882)
June 1 – Antonio Dattilo Rubbo, Italian-born Australian painter and art teacher (b. 1870)
June 29 – Max Pechstein, German Expressionist artist (b. 1881)
August 17 – Fernand Léger, French artist (b. 1881)
September 19 – Carl Milles, Swedish sculptor (b. 1875)
September 27 – Leslie Garland Bolling, African American sculptor (b. 1898)
November 5 – Maurice Utrillo, French painter (b. 1883)
November 29 – Rene Paul Chambellan, American sculptor (b. 1893)
December 17 – Dorothea Sharp, English painter (b. 1874)
December 19 – Alexander Lubimov, Russian artist (b. 1879)
December 28 – Olive Edis, English photographer (b. 1876)