The year2008 in art involved various significant events.

• AFernand Léger paintingWoman and Child (1921), which was at first on loan for an exhibit from the Davis Museum atWellesley College inWellesley, Massachusetts to theOklahoma City Museum of Art while the Davis was closed for renovations, is later returned and then stored in a crate at Wellesley, but disappears in the intervening period; the work has not been seen since.^[1]
• May – Police seize photographs byBill Henson from an upcoming exhibition at theRoslyn Oxley9 Gallery inSydney,Australia, as potentially constitutingchild pornography.^[2]

• 20 February until18 May –National Gallery,Pompeo Batoni^[3]
• 4 July until14 September – "Robert Indiana a Milano" at the Padiglione d’Arte Contemporanea (Pavilion of Contemporary Art) inMilan,Italy^[4]

• Miquel Barceló -United Nations Ceiling in the Human Rights and Alliance of Civilizations Room of theUnited Nations Office at Geneva inGeneva, Switzerland.^[5]
• Mel Bochner –BLAH! BLAH! BLAH! (seminal work in the series)^[6]
• Christine Bourdette –Cairns, installation in Portland, Oregon
• Gabriel Koren –Prudence Crandall with Student in theConnecticut State Capitol inHartford, Connecticut^[7]
• Allison Saar -Harriet Tubman Memorial inHarlem,New York City (sculpture)^[8]
• Cindy Sherman –Untitled (chromogenic photographic print)
• Stan's Cafe –Of All The People In All The World, installation and performance^[9]
• Cy Twombly -Untitled I-IX^[10]
• La Danse de la fontaine émergente, fountain inParis designed byChen Zhen and completed by his widow Xu Min
• Monumento al perro callejero inMexico City

• Séraphine

• Archibald Prize –Del Kathryn Barton for "You are what is most beautiful about me", a self portrait with Kell and Arella^[11]
• Artes Mundi Prize –N. S. Harsha
• Caldecott Medal –Brian Selznick,The Invention of Hugo Cabret
• Hugo Boss Prize –Emily Jacir
• John Moores Painting Prize –Peter McDonald for "Fontana"^[12]
• Doug Moran National Portrait Prize – Fiona Lowry
• Rolf Schock Prize in Visual Arts –Mona Hatoum
• Turner Prize nominees –Runa Islam,Mark Leckey,Goshka Macuga andCathy Wilkes.

• April 16 – Asy Syifa Kaila Saidah, Indonesian artist

• 1 January –Harold Corsini, American photographer and educator (born1919)
• 3 January –Joan Gillchrest, 89, British painter.
• 26 January –Viktor Schreckengost, American industrial designer (born1906)
• 9 February -Dorothy Podber, American performance artist (b.1932)
• 2 February –Roger Testu, French cartoonist (b.1913).
• 3 March –William Brice, American painter and teacher (b.1921).
• 11 March –Dave Stevens, Americanillustrator and comics artist (b.1955).
• 19 March –Hugo Claus, Belgian novelist, poet, playwright, painter and film director (b.1929).
• 28 March –Michael Podro, Englishart historian (b.1931).
• 29 March
  • Angus Fairhurst,Young British Artist, installation, photography and video artist (b.1966).
  • Josef Mikl, Austrian abstract painter (b.1929).

• 3 April –Vladimír Preclík, Czech writer and sculptor (b.1929).
• 6 April –John Plumb, English painter (b.1927).
• 9 April –Burt Glinn, American photographer (b.1925).
• 14 April –Ollie Johnston, American animator (b.1912).
• 16 April –Joseph Solman, American painter (b.1909).
• 23 April –Paul Wonner, American painter (b.1920).
• 25 April –Enrico Donati, Italian-born AmericanSurrealist painter and sculptor (b.1909).
• 10 May –Herbert Albert, 82, British painter and etcher.
• 12 May –Robert Rauschenberg, American artist (b.1925).
• 15 May
  • Will Elder, American illustrator andcomic book artist (b.1921).
  • Flip Schulke, American photojournalist (b.1930).
• 18 May –Pietro Cascella, Italian painter and sculptor (b.1921).
• 21 May –Bartolomeu Cid dos Santos, Portuguese artist and professor (b.1931).
• 23 May –Cornell Capa, Hungarian-American photographer and photo curator (b.1918).
• 28 May –Beryl Cook, English painter (b.1926).
• 1 June
  • Alton Kelley, American poster and album artist (b.1940).
  • Yves Saint Laurent, French fashion designer (b.1936).
• 18 June –Tasha Tudor, American illustrator and author ofchildren's books (b.1915).

• 7 July
  • Bruce Conner, American artist infilm, drawing, sculpture, painting,collage and photography (b.1933).
  • Fred Yates, English artist (b.1922).
• 19 July –Dave Pearson, English painter (b.1937).
• 1 August –Pauline Baynes, English book illustrator (b.1922).
• 12 August –Michael Baxandall, Welsh art historian (b.1933).
• 18 August –Manny Farber, American painter and film critic (b.1917).
• 23 August –John Russell, British Americanart critic (b.1919).
• 3 September –Derek Davis, English painter and potter (b.1926).
• 4 September –Alain Jacquet, French artist (b.1939).
• 12 September –Simon Hantaï, Hungarian abstract artist (b.1922).
• 1 October –Boris Efimov, Russian cartoonist and propaganda artist (b.1900).
• 7 October –Miles Richmond, English painter (b.1922).
• 11 October –William Claxton, American photographer (b.1927)
• 14 October –Ray Lowry, English cartoonist and illustrator (b.1944).
• 18 October –Gwyther Irwin, English abstract artist (b.1931).
• 15 November –Grace Hartigan, AmericanAbstract Expressionist painter, (b.1922)
• 16 November –Jan Krugier, Polish born Swiss art dealer (born1928.
• 17 November –Guy Peellaert, Belgian artist, painter, illustrator, comic artist and photographer (born1934)
• 17 December –Willoughby Sharp, American author, curator, critic (b.1936)
• 27 December –Robert Graham, Mexican-American sculptor (b.1938).
• 29 December –Vladislav Lalicki,Serbian painter (born1935).

• 2008 in art
• 2008 in the arts
• 2000s in art
• Years of the 21st century in art

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