1969 in art

Events

• January 9 – In Washington, D.C., the Smithsonian Institution displays the art of Winslow Homer for 6 weeks.
• February 2 – Ten paintings are defaced in New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art.
• August 8 – Iain Macmillan photographs the cover picture for The Beatles' album Abbey Road in London.
• October 5 – Monty Python's Flying Circus is broadcast for the first time on BBC Television, with Terry Gilliam's animations.
• October 18 – Caravaggio's Nativity with St. Francis and St. Lawrence is stolen from its frame in the Oratory of Saint Lawrence in Palermo, Sicily; it has not been recovered as of 2020.
• November 19 – The Apollo 12 lunar module lands on the moon; American artist Forrest "Frosty" Myers claims to have smuggled the art piece Moon Museum onto a leg of the module which will remain on the surface.
• c. December – The music and performance art collective COUM Transmissions is formed in England by Genesis P-Orridge.
• Late – Andy Warhol, John Wilcock, and Gerard Malanga co-found the magazine Interview.
• Opening of the Oakland Museum of California, designed by Kevin Roche.
• Lyrical Abstraction exhibition debuts at the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum marking a significant return to expressivity in American abstract painting. For two years the exhibition travels throughout the U.S. including to the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City.

  Awards

• Archibald Prize: Ray Crooke – George Johnston
• John Moores Painting Prize - Richard Hamilton and Mary Martin for "Toaster" and "Cross"

  Works

• Kenojuak Ashevak – The Owl
• Michael Ayrton – The Arkville Minotaur
• Francis Bacon – Three Studies of Lucian Freud
• Thomas Bass – Australian Seal
• Fernando Botero -
• Alexander Calder – La Grande Vitesse
• Christo and Jeanne Claude - "Wrapped Coast" in Little Bay, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
• Mai Dantsig – Partisan Ballad
• Helen Frankenthaler – Slice of Stone Itself
• Allen Jones – Hatstand, Table and Chair
• Ronnie Landfield – Diamond Lake
• André Lufwa - "Batteur de tam-tam"
• Kanda Nissho – Snow Farm
• Enzo Plazzotta – Baigneuse
• Jean-Paul Riopelle – La Joute
• Will Roberts – Redberth Village, Pembrokeshire
• Alexander Semionov – :File:Semionov-Alexander-Mikhailovich-Leningrad-in-the-morning-pos12bw.jpg|Leningrad in the Morning
• Victor Teterin – :File:Teterin-Victor-Sredne-Podjacheskaya-street-tet36bw.jpg|Sredne-Podjacheskaya Street in Leningrad
• Nikolai Timkov – :File:Timkov Rwinter rim02bw.jpg|Russian Winter

  Births

• January 5 – Marilyn Manson, American rock musician and painter
• February 7 – Andrew Micallef, Maltese painter and musician
• July 11 – Abigail McLellan, British painter
• October 5 – Chantal Joffe, English painter
• November 26 – Kara Walker, African American artist
• date unknown
• * Boushra Almutawakel, Yemeni photographer
• * Steven Claydon, English sculptor, installation artist and musician
• * Invader, French urban artist
• * Patricia Martín, Mexican curator

  Deaths

• January 29 – Edward Marshall Boehm, American Expressionist sculptor
• March 14 – Ben Shahn, Lithuanian-born American painter and photographer
• March 17 – Daniel Vázquez Díaz, Spanish painter
• May 11 – T. K. Padmini, Keralan feminist painter
• July 5 – Walter Gropius, German-born architect
• July 9 – Emerik Feješ, Hungarian and Serbian painter
• July 25 – Otto Dix, German painter and printmaker
• August – Doris Brabham Hatt, English modernist painter
• September 15 – Edith Barry, American sculptor, painter, illustrator and designer
• November 21 – Norman Lindsay, Australian sculptor and cartoonist