1915 in art explained

Events from the year 1915 in art.

Events

• May – Ambrose Heal and others found the Design and Industries Association in London.^[1]
• c. May – Publication of the first modern book illustrated with wood engravings, Frances Cornford's Spring Morning (published by The Poetry Bookshop, London) with engravings by the poet's cousin Gwen Raverat.^[2]
• June 10 – The only contemporary Vorticist exhibition staged opens at the Doré Gallery in London.^[3]
• October 24 – Giovanni Battista Tiepolo's frescos, Translation of the House of Loreto, in the Church of the Scalzi (Venice) are destroyed by an Austrian bombardment.
• December 19 – Kasimir Malevich stages the 0.10 Exhibition and originates Suprematism.^[4]
• Pierre Bodard serves with the French Army on Martinique.
• Harper's Bazaar hires Erté to design its covers.
• Edward McKnight Kauffer is given his first commission to design a poster for the Underground Electric Railways Company of London.
• Shōzaburō Watanabe originates shin-hanga collaborative woodblock printing in Japan.
• The first of the 'Etruscan terracotta warriors', forged by sculptor Alfredo Fioravanti with the Riccardi family, is purchased by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.
• 14-year-old Alice Prin ("Kiki de Montparnasse") is posing (nude) for sculptors in Paris.

Works

• George Bellows – Riverfront No. 1
• Frank Weston Benson – Red and Gold
• Umberto Boccioni
  • Charge of the Lancers
  • Horizontal Volumes
• Marc Chagall – The Poet Reclining
• William Merritt Chase – Self-portrait
• Giorgio de Chirico – The Double Dream of Spring
• Marcel Duchamp – begins producing readymades
• Jacob Epstein – bust of Admiral Lord Fisher
• J. W. Godward – In The Prime Of The Summer Time
• Alexandre Jacovleff – The Violinist
• Eric Kennington - The Kensingtons at Laventie
• Ernst Ludwig Kirchner
  • Brandenburger Tor
  • Self-portrait as a Soldier
• Carl Larsson – Midvinterblot
• Wyndham Lewis – The Crowd
• Kazimir Malevich – Black Square
• Henri Matisse – Le rideau jaune
• Jean Metzinger – Soldier at a Game of Chess
• Piet Mondrian – Composition No. 10 Pier and Ocean
• C. R. W. Nevinson
  • Bursting Shell
  • La Mitrailleuse
  • Returning to the Trenches (approximate date)
• Diego Rivera – cubist portrait of Ramón Gómez de la Serna
• Isaac Rosenberg – Self-portrait
• Ladislav Šaloun – Jan Hus Memorial (Prague)
• Helene Schjerfbeck – Self-portrait with black background
• Kathleen Scott – statue of her late husband Robert Falcon Scott
• Zinaida Serebriakova
  • Harvest
  • Peasants
• Fred Spear – Enlist (poster)
• Stewart–Screven Monument
• Paul Strand – Wall Street (photograph)
• W. L. Wyllie – The track of Lusitania: view of casualties and survivors in the water and in lifeboats
• Konstantin Yuon – March Sun
• Anders Zorn – Self-portrait in Red

Births

• January 3 – Jack Levine, American Social Realist painter and printmaker (d. 2010)^[5]
• January 15 – Leo Mol, Ukrainian-born Canadian artist, sculptor (d. 2009)^[6]
• January 24 – Robert Motherwell, American abstract expressionist painter and printmaker (d. 1991).^[7]
• February 4 – Virginia Admiral, American painter and poet (d. 2000)^[8]
• February 11 – Mervyn Levy, Welsh artist and critic (d. 1996).^[9]
• March 10 – Harry Bertoia, Italian-born American artist and furniture designer (d. 1978).^[10]
• March 19 – Maria Austria (née Marie Karoline Oeststreicher) Austro-Dutch photographer and photojournalist)^[11]
• April 4 – Louis Archambault, Canadian sculptor (d. 2003).^[12]
• April 6 – Tadeusz Kantor, Polish painter, Assemblage artist, set designer and theatre director (d. 1990)^[13]
• April 10 – Wynona Mulcaster, Canadian painter and teacher (d. 2016)
• April 15 – Elizabeth Catlett, African-American graphic artist and sculptor (d. 2012)^[14]
• April 17 – William Pachner, Czech painter (d. 2017)^[15]
• May 3 – Richard Lippold, American sculptor (d. 2002)^[16]
• May 20 – Sam Golden, American paint maker (d. 1997)
• May 31 – Carmen Herrera, Cuban-American abstract minimalist visual artist^[17]
• June 7 – Graham Ingels, American illustrator (d. 1991)^[18]
• June 11 – José Caballero, Spanish artist (d. 1991)^[19]
• June 17 – Gunther Gerzso, Mexican abstract painter (d. 2000)^[20]
• June 23 – Frances Gabe, American artist and inventor (d. 2016)
• July 8 – Malvina Cheek, British artist (d. 2016)^[21]
• July 15
  • Edith Pfau, American painter, sculptor and art educator (d. 2001)
  • Judith Révész, Hungarian-Dutch potter and sculptor (d. 2018)
• July 19 – Åke Hellman, Finnish still life and portrait painter (d. 2017)^[22]
• July 28 – Dick Sprang, American comic book artist (d. 2000)^[23]
• August 14 – Mary Fedden, English painter (d. 2012)^[24]
• August 28
  • Patrick Hennessy, Irish painter (d. 1980)
  • Tasha Tudor, American illustrator and author of children's books (d. 2008)^[25]
• September 17 – M. F. Husain, Indian artist (d. 2011)^[26]
• September 19 – Duffy Ayers, born Betty FitzGerald, English portrait painter (d. 2017)^[27]
• October 13
  • Terry Frost, English Abstract artist (d. 2003)^[28]
  • Ricco, Swiss painter (d. 1972)
• October 24 – Bob Kane, American comic book artist and writer (d. 1998)^[29]
• November 9 – André François, French cartoonist (d. 2005)^[30]
• November 26 – Inge King, German-born Australian sculptor (d. 2016)
• November 28 – Evald Okas, Estonian painter (d. 2011)^[31]

Deaths

• January 15 – Luigi Crosio, Italian painter (b. 1835)
• January 23 – Anne Whitney, American sculptor, poet (b. 1821)^[32]
• February 25 – Flaxman Charles John Spurrell, English archaeologist and photographer (b. 1842)
• April 3 – Nadežda Petrović, Serbian Fauvist painter (b. 1873)
• April 9 – Karl Bitter, Austrian American sculptor (b. 1867)
• May 7 – Sir Hugh Lane, Irish-born art dealer, collector and benefactor (b. 1875; killed in sinking of the RMS Lusitania)
• June 5 – Henri Gaudier-Brzeska, French artist and sculptor (killed in action) (b. 1891)^[33]
• June 7 – Hilda Sjölin, Swedish photographer (b. 1835)
• July 10 – Hendrik Willem Mesdag, Dutch marine painter (b. 1831)
• July 11 – Albert Schickedanz, Austro-Hungarian architect and painter in the Eclectic style (b. 1846)
• September 11 – Jens Birkholm, Danish genre and landscape painter (b. 1869)
• September 14 – Alfred Agache, French academic painter (b. 1843)
• October 24 – Désiré Charnay, French archaeologist and pioneer photographer (b. 1828)
• November 28 – Kobayashi Kiyochika, Japanese ukiyo-e painter and printmaker (b. 1847)
• December 22 – Arthur Hughes, English painter and illustrator (b. 1832)
• date unknown
  • Kikuchi Shingaku, Japanese photographer (b. 1832)
  • Krikor Torosian, Armenian illustrator (b. 1884; killed in Armenian genocide)

Notes and References

1. Web site: DIA website . 2013-03-08 . 2022-01-03 . https://web.archive.org/web/20220103235607/http://dia.org.uk/page/AboutUs/Nothing_Need_be_Ugly . dead .
2. Book: Balston, Thomas. Wood-engraving in Modern English Books. London. National Book League. 1949.
3. Web site: Vorticism . Msn Encarta. 2009-10-17. dead. https://web.archive.org/web/20070522043958/http://encarta.msn.com/encnet/refpages/RefArticle.aspx?refid=761580283. 2007-05-22.
4. Web site: Exhibition Gallery Kazimir Severinovich Malevich. 2012-09-28. International Chamber of Russian Modernism. 28 September 2012. 2014-04-19. https://web.archive.org/web/20140419203803/http://www.incorm.eu/Exhibitions/KM1900-1920.pdf. dead.
5. Book: Alan Symons. The Jewish Contribution to the 20th Century. 1997. Polo Pub.. 978-0-9523751-1-1. 9.
6. Book: Art Gallery of Ontario. Art Gallery of Ontario: The Canadian Collection. 1970. McGraw-Hill Company of Canada. 978-0-07-092504-5. 312.
7. Book: Siri Engberg. Joan Banach. Robert Motherwell. Robert Motherwell: the Complete Prints 1940-1991: Catalogue Raisonne. 2003. Hudson Hills. 978-1-55595-163-4. 40.
8. Book: Shawn Levy. De Niro: A Life. 28 October 2014. Crown. 978-0-307-71680-4. 26.
9. News: Levy, Ceri. Obituary: Mervyn Levy . https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20220501/https://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/obituary-mervyn-levy-1347766.html . 2022-05-01 . subscription . live . 17 May 1996. . London . 20 March 2011 .
10. Book: Muriel Emanuel. Jean-Christophe Ammann. Contemporary Artists. 1983. Macmillan. 978-0-333-30773-1. 94.
11. Book: Korotin . Ilse . biografiA. Lexikon österreichischer Frauen, Band 3. . June 2016 . Wien . 978-3205795902 . 163.
12. Book: Current Biography Yearbook 1959. 1960. 13.
13. Book: Deborah Andrews. Annual Obituary, 1990. 1991. St. James Press. 978-1-55862-092-6. 752.
14. News: Karen Rosenberg . Elizabeth Catlett, Sculptor With Eye on Social Issues, Is Dead at 96. New York Times . April 3, 2012 . February 11, 2015.
15. Book: American Federation of Arts. Kenneth Donahue. William Pachner. 1959. American Federation of Arts. 20.
16. Web site: Encyclopædia Britannica . Richard Lippold (American sculptor) - Britannica Online Encyclopedia . Britannica.com . 2010-07-29.
17. Book: Carmen Herrera. Alejandro Anreus. Carolina Ponce de León. Carmen Herrera: The Black-and-white Paintings, 1951-1989. 1998. El Museo del Barrio. 978-1-882454-07-5. 29.
18. Book: Don Thompson. Maggie Thompson. Comic-book Superstars. 1993. Krause Publications. 978-0-87341-256-8. 249.
19. Book: José Caballero. José Caballero: círculos y sueños. 2002. Sociedad Estatal para la Acción Cultural Exterior. 978-84-96008-07-6.
20. Book: N. Y.) Association of Hispanic Arts (New York. Association for Latin American Art. St. James Guide to Hispanic Artists: Profiles of Latino and Latin American Artists. 2002. St. James Press. 978-1-55862-470-2. 233.
21. Web site: Magdalen Evans. Malvina Cheek obituary . 31 May 2016. 31 May 2016. The Guardian.
22. Web site: Borgåkonstnären Åke Hellman har gått bort | Östnyland . sv . svenska.yle.fi . 22 December 2017. 2018-10-01.
23. Book: The Comics Journal. 2000. Comics Journal, Incorporated. 21.
24. News: Mary Fedden obituary. McNay. Michael. 22 June 2012. The Guardian.
25. Book: Lee Kingman. Joanna Foster. Ruth Giles Lontoft. Illustrators of Children's Books: 1957-1966. 1968. Horn Book. 978-0-87675-017-9. 183.
26. Encyclopedia: M.F. Husain . . 4 September 2018.
27. Web site: Duffy Ayers obituary. December 11, 2017. Mel Gooding. The Guardian. July 24, 2021.
28. Book: Jean-Christophe Ammann. Contemporary Artists. 1989. St. James Press. 978-0-912289-96-0. 331.
29. Book: Edmond Grant. The Motion Picture Guide: 1999 Annual (The Films of 1998). 1999. CineBooks. 978-0-933997-43-1. 505.
30. Book: Lee Kingman. Joanna Foster. Ruth Giles Lontoft. Illustrators of Children's Books: 1957-1966. 1968. Horn Book. 978-0-87675-017-9. 110.
31. Book: Paul Ambur. Evald Okase eksliibrised. 1969. Eesti raamat. 89.
32. Book: Academic American Encyclopedia. 1995. Grolier Incorporated. 978-0-7172-2059-5. 141.
33. Book: Ede, H.S. . Savage Messiah . 1931 . London: Heinemann . 1655358.