1940 in art
The year 1940 in art involved some significant events and new works.
Events
- February – The series of 'Careless Talk Costs Lives' propaganda posters by 'Fougasse' is published by the Ministry of Information.
- October – Grandma Moses' second solo exhibition, "What a Farm Wife Painted", opens at Otto Kallir's Galerie Saint-Etienne in New York City.
- November 3 – The War Artists' Advisory Committee of the U.K. Ministry of Information opens its first exhibition of War Pictures by British Artists to the public at the otherwise-evacuated National Gallery in London.
- November 13 – Release of Walt Disney's animated movie Fantasia in the United States.
- December 8 – Mexican painters Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera remarry in San Francisco
- Cecil Beaton is among the photographers commissioned by the U.K. Ministry of Information to undertake war photography.
- Xawery Dunikowski is deported to Auschwitz concentration camp, where he survives until 1945.
- Jacques Lipchitz flees France for the United States.
- The Reichsleiter Rosenberg Taskforce of the Nazi Party begins its task of appropriating cultural property from occupied territories, initially in France.
- Henry Moore is commissioned as a war artist and produces drawings of Londoners sleeping in the London Underground while sheltering from The Blitz.
- Anthony Blunt's Artistic Theory in Italy 1450–1600 is published. This year he is recruited to work for MI5 while simultaneously spying for the NKVD.
Awards
- Archibald Prize: Max Meldrum – Dr J Forbes McKenzie
Works
Paintings
- Vanessa Bell – Leonard Woolf
- Clive Branson – Noreen and Rosa
- Howard Chandler Christy – Scene at the Signing of the Constitution of the United States
- Charles Cundall – :File:The Withdrawal from Dunkirk, June 1940 Art.IWMARTLD305.jpg|The Withdrawal from Dunkirk, June 1940
- Salvador Dalí
- * The Face of War
- * Slave Market with the Disappearing Bust of Voltaire
- 'Fougasse' – Careless Talk Costs Lives
- Jared French – Glenway Wescott, George Platt Lynes, Monroe Wheeler
- Jesús Guerrero Galván – Head of a Woman
- Edward Hopper
- * Gas
- * Office at Night
- Frida Kahlo
- * '
- * '
- * '
- * '
- * Self-Portrait with Thorn Necklace and Hummingbird
- * The Wounded Table
- Raymond McGrath – :File:Training - Aircraft Under Construction .jpg|Training Aircraft Under Construction
- Conroy Maddox – :File:Maddox, The Strange Country.jpg|The Strange Country
- Henri Matisse
- * La Blouse Roumaine
- * Le Rêve de 1940
- Roberto Matta – Dark Light
- John Piper
- * Coventry Cathedral
- * '
- * '
- Candido Portinari – Seascape
- Eric Ravilious – Watercolours
- * '
- * '
- * Ship's Screw on a Railway Truck
- * '
- Charles Sheeler
- * Bucks County Barn
- * Fugue
- * Interior
- Situ Qiao – :File:Put Down Your Whip by Situ Qiao.jpg|Put Down Your Whip
- Graham Sutherland
- * '
- * :File:Devastation, 1940 AHouse on the Welsh Border by Graham Sutherland.jpg|Devastation, 1940: A House on the Welsh Border
- Hugh J. Ward – Portrait of Superman
- Grant Wood – Sentimental Ballad
Photographs
- Herbert Mason – St Paul's Survives
- Nickolas Muray – Soldiers of the Sky
Sculptures
- Eric Aumonier – :File:East Finchley Stn statue.JPG|The Archer
- Carl Milles – The Wedding of the Waters
- Isamu Noguchi – News
- Attilio Piccirilli – Guglielmo Marconi
- José Ângelo Cottinelli Telmo and Leopoldo de Almeida – Padrão dos Descobrimentos
Births
- January – Anthony d'Offay, British art dealer
- January 2 – Peter Young, American painter
- January 6 – John Byrne, Scottish painter and writer
- January 24
- * Vito Acconci, American conceptual artist, installation artist, performance artist and filmmaker
- * Mel Bochner, American conceptual artist
- February 22 – Billy Name, born William Linich, Jr., American photographer, collaborator with Andy Warhol
- March 7 – Hannah Wilke, American painter, sculptor and photographer
- March 20 – Mary Ellen Mark, American photographer
- April 11 – Marcia Tucker, American museum curator
- April 16 – Joan Snyder, American painter
- April 30 – Burt Young, born Gerald DeLouise, American actor, painter and author
- May 11 – Juan Downey, Chilean-American video artist
- June 17 – Alton Kelley, American poster and album artist
- July 5 – Chuck Close, American "photorealistic" painter
- August 23 – Galen Rowell, American wilderness photographer
- September 6 – Elizabeth Murray, American painter, printmaker and draughtsman
- September 10 – David Mann, American painter
- September 26 – Arno Rink, German painter and professor
- September 27 – Rudolph Moshammer, German fashion designer
- October 22 – Ashley Jackson, Malaysian-born Yorkshire landscape watercolourist
- date unknown
- * Germano Celant, Italian art critic, curator and historian
- * Stevan Knežević, Serbian painter, sculptor and professor of art
- * Anthony McCall, British-born American avant-garde installation artist, projected film
- * Dušan Otašević, Serbian painter and sculptor
- * Jaune Quick–to–See Smith, Native American painter and printmaker
Deaths
- January 18 – Jonas Lie, Norwegian American landscape painter
- February 11 – Ellen Day Hale, American painter and printmaker
- February 27 – Nicolae Tonitza, Romanian painter and etcher
- March 16 – Iso Rae, Australian Impressionist painter
- April 15 – Alexandru Plămădeală, Moldovan sculptor
- June 21 – Édouard Vuillard, French painter
- June 29 – Paul Klee, Swiss painter expressionism, cubism, and surrealism
- July 4 – Józef Pankiewicz, Polish painter, graphic artist and teacher
- July 28 – Gerda Wegener, Danish artist
- July 31 – Elfriede Lohse-Wächtler, German avant-garde painter, by involuntary euthanasia
- August 22 – Paul Gösch, German artist and architect
- September 15 – Dick Ket, Dutch painter
- September 27 – Walter Benjamin, German philosopher, "comparatist" and art critic
- October 15 – Karl Uchermann, Norwegian canine painter
- November 16 – Colin Gill, English war artist, muralist and portrait painter.
- November 17 – Eric Gill, English sculptor and engraver
- date unknown – Francesco Stella, Italian painter and set designer