Events from the year 1978 in art.
Events 27 June – Stitching the Standard by Edmund Leighton is sold at Sotheby's in Belgravia to a private collector.
Awards Archibald Prize: Brett Whiteley – Art, Life and the other thing John Moores Painting Prize - Noel Forster for "A painting in six stages with a silk triangle"
Works
Vacant Lot of Cabbages 4 January - 21 June Wellington New Zealand. Zdzisław Beksiński – AA78 Christo and Jeanne Claude - "Wrapped Walk Ways" in Loose Park in Kansas City, Missouri Dan Flavin – untitled (to the real Dan Hill) Helen Frankenthaler – Cleveland Symphony Orchestra David Gentleman – "Eleanor cross" mural for Charing Cross tube station (London) Jack Goldstein – The Jump Michael Heizer – Isolated Mass/Circumflex (Number 2) (land art, Houston, Texas) Bryan Hunt – Big Twist (bronze, Houston, Texas) Nabil Kanso – Hiroshima Nagasaki One-Minute Liz Leyh – Concrete Cows (Milton Keynes) Odd Nerdrum – The Murder of Andreas Baader Dennis Oppenheim – Cobalt Vectors – An Invasion Mikhail Savitsky – Partisan Madonna of Minsk
Births 19 September – Mykhailo Kolodko, Ukrainian/Hungarian sculptor
Deaths 10 January – Gluck, born Hannah Gluckstein, English painter (b. 1895) 19 January – Živko Stojsavljević, Serbian painter (b. 1900). 1 February – Don Freeman, American author, painter and illustrator (b. 1908) 24 February – Alma Thomas, African American abstract expressionist painter (b. 1891). 13 April – Jack Chambers, Canadian artist and filmmaker (b. 1931). 27 April – Ralston Crawford, Canadian-born American painter, lithographer and photographer (b. 1906) 29 April – Yukihiko Yasuda, Japanese painter (b. 1884). 8 May – Duncan Grant, Scottish painter (b. 1885). 21 May – Jo Spier, Dutch artist and illustrator (b. 1900) 31 May – Hannah Höch, German Dada photomontage artist (b. 1889). 13 July Thomas B. Hess, American art editor, writer, and curator (b. 1920) Oliver Messel, English-born stage designer (b. 1904). 5 August – Victor Hasselblad, Swedish inventor and photographer (b. 1889). 14 August – Nicolas Bentley, British author and illustrator (b. 1907). 27 August – Gordon Matta-Clark, American artist (b. 1943). 6 November – Harry Bertoia, Italian-born American artist and designer (b. 1915). 8 November – Norman Rockwell, American painter and illustrator (b. 1894). 20 November – Giorgio de Chirico, Greek-Italian painter (b. 1888) 30 November – Otto Kallir, Austrian -American art historian, author, publisher, and gallerist (b. 1894)
Full date unknown Gabriel Hayes, Irish sculptor and coin designer (b.1909). Leo Michelson, Latvian-American painter and sculptor (b.1887).
References
See also 1978 in fine arts of the Soviet Union