1981 in art

Events

• 10 September – Picasso's painting Guernica is returned from New York to Madrid.
• Blek le Rat begins his stencil graffiti art in Paris.

  Awards

• Archibald Prize: Eric Smith – Rudy Komon

  Works

• Tony Cragg – Britain as Seen from the North
• John Doubleday – Statue of Charlie Chaplin
• Don Eckland – Emergence
• Bryan Hunt – Arch Falls
• Nabil Kanso – Dreamvision series of paintings completed
• Ellsworth Kelly – Curve XXIV
• Odd Nerdrum – Twilight
• Helmut Newton – Sie kommen!
• Richard Serra – Tilted Arc, Federal Plaza, New York City
• Andy Warhol – Myths series
• Aubrey Williams – Shostakovich series of paintings completed

  Births

• 15 April – Seth Wulsin, American artist.
• 4 November – Paul Tucker, Canadian visual artist and graphic novel and webcomic illustrator.

  Deaths

• 19 January – Francesca Woodman, 22, American photographer
• 19 June – Lotte Reiniger, German silhouette animator and film director.
• 29 June – Russell Drysdale, Australian artist.
• 8 July – Isaac Soyer, Russian-born American painter,.
• 7 September – Christy Brown, Irish author, painter and poet.
• 12 October – Enzo Plazzotta, Italian-born British sculptor.
• 20 October – Annot, German painter.
• 17 November – Nano Reid, Irish painter.
• 22 November – Corrado Parducci, Italian-American architectural sculptor.

  Full date unknown

• John E. Berninger, American landscape painter
• Hans Coper, German-born English studio potter.
• Hubert Davis, American artist.
• Art Frahm, American pin-up and advertising artist.
• Pinchus Kremegne, Belarusian sculptor, painter and lithographer.