1996 in art

Events

• 8 January – Shortly after publication of the Italian edition of his book The Art Forger's Handbook, English-born art forger Eric Hebborn is found lying in a street in Rome, his skull crushed with a blunt instrument; he dies in hospital on 11 January.
• 15 March – Arken Museum of Modern Art in Copenhagen, designed by Søren Robert Lund, opens.
• November – Museum für Gegenwart in former Hamburger Bahnhof in Berlin, converted by Josef Paul Kleihues, opens.
• Gallery of Modern Art in Glasgow opens.
• Museum Tinguely in Basel, designed by Mario Botta, opens.
• For an exhibition at the de Appel Arts Center in Amsterdam, Maurizio Cattelan steals the entire contents of another artist's show from a nearby gallery with the idea of passing it off as his own work, Another Fucking Readymade, until the police insist he return the items on threat of arrest.

  Awards

• Archibald Prize – Wendy Sharpe, Self Portrait as Diana of Erskineville
• Jan Amos Comenius Medal – Yaacov Agam, for the "Agam Method" for visual education of young children
• The Inaugural Hugo Boss Prize – Matthew Barney
• Turner Prize – Douglas Gordon
• Wynne Prize – William Robinson, Creation landscape – earth and sea

  Exhibitions

• British Art Show 5 – various venues in Manchester
• Sol LeWitt Prints: 1970–1995 – travelling exhibition by the Museum of Modern Art, New York.
• Vermeer – nearly complete exhibition of 25 works, The Hague and Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

  Works

• Robert Calvo – Ascension
• Maurizio Cattelan – Bidibidobidiboo
• Angela Conner – Rising Universe
• Paul DiPasquale - statue of Arthur Ashe on Monument Avenue in Richmond, Virginia
• David LaChapelle - "Alexander McQueen and Isabella Blow"
• Roy Lichtenstein – Brushstrokes
• Ron Mueck – Big Baby, Mongrel and Pinocchio (sculptures

  Films

• Basquiat

  Deaths

January to June

• 3 January – Terence Cuneo, English railway and military painter.
• 6 January – Duane Hanson, American sculptor.
• 9 January – Félix González-Torres, Cuban artist.
• 11 January – Eric Hebborn, English-born art forger.
• 11 February – Pierre Edouard Leopold Verger, French photographer and ethnographer.
• 18 January – Leonor Fini, Argentine surrealist painter.
• 28 January – Jerry Siegel, American comic book artist.
• 20 February – Audrey Munson, American actress and artist's model.
• 5 March – Joshua Compston – British gallerist.
• 15 March – Helen Chadwick, British artist.
• 14 April – Mervyn Levy, Welsh-born art critic and artist.
• 25 April – Saul Bass, American graphic designer and Academy Award-winning filmmaker.
• 7 May – William Copley, American artist.
• 10 June – Marie-Louise von Motesiczky, Austrian painter.

  July to December

• 17 July - Rico Puhlmann, German photographer.
• 28 July – Roger Tory Peterson, American naturalist, ornithologist, artist and educator.
• 27 August – Abram Games, English poster artist.
• 24 October – Lin Onus, Scottish-Aboriginal Koori artist.
• 22 November – Edmund Teske, American photographer.
• 26 November – Paul Rand, American graphic designer.
• 29 November – Dan Flavin, American minimalist artist.
• 3 December – Jean Tabaud, French artist.
• 11 December – Willie Rushton, English cartoonist, satirist, comedian, actor and performer.
• 16 December – Quentin Bell, English art historian and author.
• 25 December – Gabriel Loire, French stained glass artist.