• August 25 – Jesús Soto Museum of Modern Art in Ciudad Bolívar, Venezuela, designed by Carlos Raúl Villanueva, is opened.
• Alexander Calder is hired by Braniff International Airways to paint a full-size DC-8-62 as a "flying canvas".
• David Hockney begins a 2-year spell living and working in Paris.^[1]
• Aristeidis Metallinos begins his career as a sculptor.^[2]
• Robert Scull's collection of American Pop and Minimal art is auctioned by Sotheby's in New York City.

• Archibald Prize: Janet Dawson – Michael Boddy

• Christopher Williams – centenary exhibition in Cardiff, Maesteg and Swansea.

• Emma Amos – Sandy and Her Husband^[3]
• Michael Ayrton – Icarus (sculpture, London)
• Michael Craig-Martin – An Oak Tree (conceptual work)
• Salvador Dalí – Dalí Seen from the Back Painting Gala from the Back Eternalised by Six Virtual Corneas Provisionally Reflected by Six Real Mirrors (stereoscopic painted in duplicate but for a small variation - completed)
• William Eggleston – The Red Ceiling (photograph)
• Ben Enwonwu – Tutu
• Gluck – Credo (Rage, Rage Against the Dying of the Light) (completed)
• Barbara Hepworth – Conversation with Magic Stones
• Hipgnosis – The Dark Side of the Moon (album cover)
• David Hockney – The Student: Homage to Picasso (print)
• David Inshaw – The Badminton Game
• Nabil Kanso – Place des Martyres (paintings); Vietnam paintings series (through 1974)
• Frederic Littman – Farewell to Orpheus (bronze, Portland, Oregon)
• Joan Miró – completes series The navigator's hope
• Henry Moore – Large Four Piece Reclining Figure 1972–73 (bronze)
• Mike Parr - Wound By Measurement (performed at Galerie Impact in Lausanne, Switzerland)^[4]
• Ivor Roberts-Jones – Statue of Winston Churchill, Parliament Square (bronze, London)
• Dorothea Tanning - Hôtel du Pavot, Chambre 202 (work completed)^[5]
• Euan Uglow – Georgia
• Andy Warhol – Man
• David Wynne
  • Embracing Lovers (bronze, Guildhall, London)
  • Girl with a Dolphin (bronze, by Tower Bridge, London)

• January 29 – Louise Hindsgavl, Danish artist^[6]
• February 1 – Yuri Landman, Dutch musician, comic book creator and singer
• May 8 – Hiromu Arakawa, Japanese manga artist
• July 7 – Natsuki Takaya, Japanese manga artist
• July 28 (possible date) – Banksy, English graffiti artist
• August 18 – Jerome Lagarrigue, French painter and illustrator

Full date unknown edit

• Jean-Pierre Canlis, American glass artist.
• Oisín McGann, Irish author and illustrator.
• Rosalind Nashashibi, English Palestinian film artist.
• Charles Pétillon, French photographer and instillation artist

January to June edit

• January 17 – Tarsila do Amaral, Brazilian modernist artist (b. 1886).^[7]
• March 14 – Chic Young, American cartoonist (b. 1901).
• March 25
  • Gerda Höglund, Swedish religious painter (b. 1878).
  • Edward Steichen, American photographer, painter and curator (b. 1879).
• April 8 – Pablo Picasso, Spanish painter, draftsman and sculptor (b. 1881).
• April 13 – Henry Darger, American outsider artist (b. 1892)^[8]
• April 28 – Siri Derkert, Swedish artist, sculptor and political campaigner (b. 1888).
• May 1 – Asger Jorn, Danish artist and essayist (b. 1914).
• May 12 – Edith Tudor Hart, née Suschitzky, Austrian-born photojournalist and communist agent in Britain (b. 1908).
• May 16 – Albert Paris Gütersloh, Austrian painter and writer (b. 1887).
• May 18 – Ronald Ossory Dunlop, Irish author and painter (b. 1894).
• May 21 – Montague Dawson, English maritime painter (b. 1890).

July to December edit

• July 20 – Robert Smithson, American artist (b. 1938).
• August 9 – Claude Buckle, English poster artist and watercolourist (b. 1905).
• September 30 – Peter Pitseolak, Inuit photographer, artist and historian (b. 1902).
• November 13 – Elsa Schiaparelli, Italian fashion designer (b. 1890).
• November 17 – Adolf Wissel, German painter, an official artist of Nazism (b. 1894).
• December 7 – Camilo Mori, Chilean painter (b. 1896).
• December 13 – Ralph Stackpole, American sculptor, painter, muralist, etcher and art educator (b. 1885).^[9]
• December 16 – Andrej Bicenko, Russian fresco painter and muralist (b. 1886).

• 1973 in Fine Arts of the Soviet Union