1942 in art

Events

• 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 is illustrator Ronald Searle.
• 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 and Vanessa Bell.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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.

  Awards

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

  Works

• Rita Angus – Portrait
• Thomas Hart Benton – Year of Peril
• George Berry – Statue of Benjamin Franklin
• Pierre Bonnard – Red Roofs in Cannet
• Paul-Émile Borduas – Abstraction No 7
• Russell Drysdale – Soldier
• Richard Eurich
• *
• * :File:The Raid on the Bruneval Radio-location Station, 27th-28th February 1942 Art.IWMARTLD3475.jpg|The Raid on the Bruneval Radio-location Station
• Marie Hadad – Portrait of Mr. Dahesh
• Edward Hopper – Nighthawks
• Dame Laura Knight – A Balloon Site, Coventry
• Jacques Lipchitz – Theseus
• L. S. Lowry
• * After the Blitz
• * '
• 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
• Méret Oppenheim – Sun, Moon, Stars
• Gordon Parks – :File:Gordon Parks - American Gothic.jpg|American Gothic, Washington, D.C.
• Pablo Picasso
• * Portrait of Dora Maar
• * Woman in a Fish Hat
• Diego Rivera – The Flower Seller
• Ruskin Spear – '
• Dorothea Tanning – Birthday
• Carel Weight – :File:Recruit's Progress- Medical Inspection Art.IWMARTLD2909.jpg|Recruit's Progress – Medical Inspection
• Andrew Wyeth – Winter Fields
• Philip Zec – The price of petrol has been increased by one penny – Official

  Births

• January 8 – George Passmore, English artist partnering with Gilbert
• February 2 – Alonzo Davis, African American artist
• February 10 – Lawrence Weiner, American conceptual artist
• February 28 – Oliviero Toscani, Italian photographer
• March 2 – Jonathan Borofsky, American painter, sculptor and installation artist
• March 16 – Danny Lyon, American documentary photographer
• March 31 – Dan Graham, American conceptual and performance artist
• May 20 – Anna Maria Maiolino, Italian-born Brazilian artist
• August 18? – Charlotte Johnson Wahl, born Charlotte Fawcett, English painter
• October 6 – Dan Christensen, American abstract painter
• October 29 – Bob Ross, American painter and television presenter
• November 7 – Stan Rice, American poet and artist
• December 1 – William Feaver, English art critic and historian
• date unknown
• * Susan Crile, American painter
• * David Medalla, Filipino-born sculptor
• * De Es Schwertberger, born Dieter Schwertberger, Austrian painter

  Deaths

• January – Albert Moulton Foweraker, English painter
• January 5 – Tina Modotti, Italian photographer and model
• January 6 – John Bernard Flannagan, American sculptor
• January 22 – Walter Sickert, British Impressionist painter
• January 23 – Bogdan Šuput, Serbian painter
• January 27 – Petar Dobrović, Serbian painter
• February 9 – Anna Elizabeth Klumpke, American portrait and genre painter
• February 12 – Grant Wood, American painter
• February 20 – Herbert Dicksee, English canine painter
• April 18 – Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, founder of the Whitney Museum of American Art
• May 23 – C. R. Ashbee, English designer
• June 18 – Sutherland Macdonald, English tattoo artist
• June 30 – William Henry Jackson, American photographer
• August 10 – Albert Guillaume, French painter and caricaturist
• August 30 – Sava Šumanović, Serbian painter
• September 7
• * Cecilia Beaux, American portrait painter
• * Albert Julius Olsson, English marine painter
• September 9 – Eric Ravilious, English painter
• November 24 – Bohumil Kafka, Czech sculptor
• December 19 – T. F. Šimon, Czech painter
• date unknown
• * Nampeyo, Hopi ceramicist
• * Adolphe Valette, French painter