1915 in art

The year 1915 in art involved some significant events and new works.

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

Matisse – Le rideau jaune

• 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)
• January 24 – Robert Motherwell, American abstract expressionist painter and printmaker (d. 1991).
• February 11 – Mervyn Levy, Welsh artist and critic (d. 1996).
• March 10 – Harry Bertoia, Italian-born American artist and furniture designer (d. 1978).
• April 4 – Louis Archambault, Canadian sculptor (d. 2003).
• April 6 – Tadeusz Kantor, Polish painter, Assemblage artist, set designer and theatre director (d. 1990)
• April 15 – Elizabeth Catlett, African-American graphic artist and sculptor (d. 2012)
• May 3 – Richard Lippold, American sculptor (d. 2002)
• May 20 – Sam Golden, American paint maker (d. 1997)
• May 31 – Carmen Herrera, Cuban-American abstract minimalist visual artist
• June 7 – Graham Ingels, American illustrator (d. 1991)
• June 11 – José Caballero, Spanish artist (d. 1991)
• June 17 – Gunther Gerzso, Mexican abstract painter (d. 2000)
• July 19 – Åke Hellman, Finnish still life and portrait painter (d. 2017)
• August 14 – Mary Fedden, English painter (d. 2012)
• August 28
  • Patrick Hennessy, Irish painter (d. 1980)
  • Tasha Tudor, American illustrator and author of children's books (d. 2008)
• September 19 – Duffy Ayers, born Betty FitzGerald, English portrait painter (d. 2017)
• October 13
  • Terry Frost, English Abstract artist (d. 2003)
  • Ricco Wassmer, Swiss painter (d. 1972)
• October 24 – Bob Kane, American comic book artist and writer (d. 1998)
• November 9 – André François, French cartoonist (d. 2005)
• November 26 – Inge King, German-born Australian sculptor (d. 2016)

Deaths

• 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)
• 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 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
  • Luigi Crosio, Italian painter (b. 1835)
  • Kikuchi Shingaku, Japanese photographer (b. 1832)
  • Hilda Sjölin, Swedish photographer (b. 1835)
  • Krikor Torosian, Armenian illustrator (b. 1884; killed in Armenian Genocide)

References