1945 in art

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The year 1945 in art involved some significant events and new works.

Events

April 15 – Bergen-Belsen concentration camp liberated. Among the British war artists (official and unofficial) who record it soon afterwards are Sgt. Eric Taylor, Leslie Cole, Doris Zinkeisen, Edgar Ainsworth (of Picture Post), Mervyn Peake and Mary Kessell.^[1]
April 28 – Professor Anthony Blunt is appointed to succeed Sir Kenneth Clark as Surveyor of the King's Pictures in the United Kingdom.
May
- Allied forces reach the Nazi stolen art repository in the salt mines at Altaussee in Austria, finding more than 6,500 paintings.
- Retreating SS forces destroy the Klimt University of Vienna Ceiling Paintings in store at Schloss Immendorf.^[2]^[3]
- Ben Nicholson paints still lifes incorporating British Union Flags to mark V-E Day.
July–December – Han van Meegeren paints his last forgery of a Dutch Golden Age painting, Jesus among the Doctors, before witnesses in Amsterdam to refute charges of having sold genuine Dutch cultural property to Nazis (for which he was arrested on May 29).^[4]
October 25 – Jackson Pollock marries Lee Krasner.
Constantine Andreou moves to France, having received a scholarship from the French government.
New York businessman Henry Pearlman acquires Chaim Soutine's View of Céret, the foundation of his collection of modern art.

Archibald Prize: William Dargie – Lt-General The Hon Edmund Herring, KBC, DSO, MC, ED

January – Mark Rothko exhibition in the Daylight Gallery of Peggy Guggenheim's The Art of This Century gallery on Manhattan.
March 19 – Jackson Pollock's second solo exhibition opens in the Daylight Gallery of Peggy Guggenheim's The Art of This Century gallery on Manhattan.

January 20 – Susan Rothenberg, American painter
January 25 – Barbara Kruger, American photographer, graphic artist and sculptor
January 31 – Joseph Kosuth, American conceptual artist
March 4 – Rose Finn-Kelcey, English performance and installation artist (d.2014)
March 8 – Anselm Kiefer, German sculptor
June 2 – Richard Long, English land artist
June 14 – Jörg Immendorff, German painter, sculptor, stage designer and art professor (d.2007)
June 30 – Sean Scully, Irish-born painter
July 16 – Victor Sloan, Irish visual artist
July 28 – Jim Davis, American cartoonist, creator of "Garfield"
August 4 – Paul McCarthy, American sculptor and installation and video artist
August 9 – Posy Simmonds, English cartoonist
August 18 – Brummbaer, German digital artist
August 19 – Peter Reginato, American sculptor
September 27 – Jack Goldstein, Canadian-born American performance and conceptual artist turned painter (d.2003)
October 13 – Heinz Plank, German painter, draughtsman and graphic artist
October 23 – Maggi Hambling, English painter and sculptor
November 14 – David Nash, English sculptor and academic
date unknown
- Suzanne Lacy, American installation, video and performance artist
- Catherine Leroy, French photographer (d.2006)
- Daisy Youngblood, American ceramic artist and sculptor

January 7 – Alexander Stirling Calder, American sculptor (b. 1870)
February 21 – Anne Marie Carl-Nielsen, Danish sculptor (born 1863)
March 5 – Albert Richards, English war artist (b. 1919); killed on active service in the Netherlands
March 6 – Milena Pavlović-Barili, Serbian painter and poet (b. 1909); died in riding accident in the United States
March 31 – Hando Ruus, Estonian painter (b. 1917); presumed executed as a prisoner of war in the Soviet Union
April – Josef Čapek, Czech painter and writer (b. 1887); died in Bergen-Belsen concentration camp
April 22 – Käthe Kollwitz, German painter, lithographer and sculptor (b. 1867)
May 5 – René Lalique, French glass designer (b. 1860)
June 15 – Nikola Avramov, Bulgarian painter (b. 1897)
September 16 – David Young Cameron, Scottish painter and etcher (b. 1865)
October 24 – Franklin Carmichael, Canadian painter (b. 1890)
October 31 – Ignacio Zuloaga, Basque painter (b. 1870)
November 23 – Ljubomir Ivanović, Serbian painter (b. 1882)
November – Thomas Hennell, English painter (b. 1903); presumed killed on active service in Indonesia
December 20 – Ong Schan Tchow, Chinese artist (b. 1900); died in Malaysia
date unknown – Franz Sedlacek, Austrian painter (b. 1891); presumed killed on active service in Poland

^ "Witnessing Belsen". Unspeakable. Imperial War Museum. 2008. Retrieved 2014-01-22.
^ Jones, Jonathan (2009-05-06). "Klimt's Dazzling demons". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 2012-02-16.
^ SheilaTGTG55 (2011-10-13). "The Fire At Schloss Immendorf". Open Salon. Archived from the original on 2011-10-14. Retrieved 2012-02-16. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
^ Kreuger, Frederik H. (2010). Van Meegeren Revisited & List of Works. Amsterdam: Erasmus Books. pp. 152–155. ISBN 978-90-5959-060-1.
^ Connor, Robert (1969). Cassandra: Reflections in a Mirror. London: Cassell. ISBN 0304933414.