2001 in art

Events

• 1 January – A black monolith measuring approximately 9 feet tall appears in Seattle, Washington's Magnuson Park, placed by an anonymous artist in reference to the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey.
• 4 June – Unveiling of Rachel Whiteread's Untitled Monument on the Fourth plinth, Trafalgar Square, London.
• 17 July – Inauguration of the Altamira cave replica created by Manuel Franquelo and Sven Nebel.
• 11 September – An estimated $100 million worth of art is destroyed in the 11 September attacks on New York City. Public artwork accounts for around $10 million of this figure, which includes works by Alexander Calder, Joan Miró and Roy Lichtenstein. Fritz Koenig's Great Spherical Caryatid ("The Sphere") survives though damaged.
• Undated – A new wing in the Genia Schreiber University Art Gallery of the University of Tel Aviv, Israel, is dedicated to the memory of Michel Kikoine.

Exhibitions

• Max Beckmann retrospective at the Pompidou Centre, Paris

Awards

• Archibald Prize – Nicholas Harding for John Bell as King Lear
• Beck's Futures – Tim Stoner
• Schock Prize in Visual Arts – Giuseppe Penone
• Turner Prize – Martin Creed for Work No. 227: The lights going on and off (Tate)
• Venice Biennial
  • Lion d'Or Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement: Richard Serra (USA), Cy Twombly (USA)
  • Lion d'Or for Best Pavilion: Gregor Schneider (Germany)

Works

• Michael Landy - Breakdown
• Jeremy Deller – Battle of Orgreave
• Lucian Freud – Portrait of Queen Elizabeth II
• Tracy Harris – Funnel

Deaths

January to June

• 30 January – O. Winston Link, American photographer. (b. 1914)
• 12 February – Kristina Söderbaum, Swedish-German film actress, producer and photographer (b. 1912)
• 18 February – Balthus, French modern artist (b. 1908)
• 4 March
  • Jean René Bazaine, French painter, stained glass window designer and writer (b. 1904)
  • Fred Lasswell, American cartoonist (b. 1916)
• 1 June – Hank Ketcham, American cartoonist (b. 1920)
• 19 June – David Sylvester, English art critic and curator (b. 1924)
• 27 June – Tove Jansson, Swedish-Finnish novelist, painter, illustrator and comic strip author (b. 1914)

July to December

• 4 July – Anne Yeats, Irish painter and stage designer (b. 1919)
• 11 July – Herman Brood, Dutch musician, painter and media personality (b. 1946)
• July – Hélène de Beauvoir, French painter (b. 1910)
• 23 October
  • Josh Kirby, English commercial artist (b. 1928)
  • Daniel Wildenstein, French international art dealer and scholar (b. 1917)
• 3 November – Sir Ernst Gombrich, Austrian-born art historian (b. 1909)
• 19 November – Marcelle Ferron, Canadian painter and stained glass artist (b. 1924)
• December – Mercedes Matter, American painter (b. 1913)
• 29 December – György Kepes, Hungarian-born painter, designer, educator and art theorist (b. 1906)