• 26 April – Nineteen Old Master paintings from the Beit collection are stolen from Russborough House in Ireland by a Provisional Irish Republican Army gang including English heiress Rose Dugdale.
• Roy Strong becomes Director of the Victoria and Albert Museum.
• Hallwalls, a non profit exhibition space and arts organization, is established in a converted ice packing warehouse in Buffalo, New York, by the artists Charles Clough, Robert Longo, Diane Bertolo, Nancy Dwyer, Larry Lundy, Cindy Sherman and Michael Zwack.

• Archibald Prize: Sam Fullbrook – Jockey Norman Stephens
• John Moores Painting Prize - Myles Murphy - "Figure with Yellow Foreground"^[1]

• Bruce Beasley – Big Red (sculpture, Eugene, Oregon)
• Salvador Dalí – Nieuw Amsterdam (object/sculpture)
• Judy Dater – Imogen and Twinka at Yosemite (photograph)
• Silvio Gazzaniga – FIFA World Cup Trophy
• David Hockney – Contre-jour in the French style – Against the Day dans le style français^[2]
• Nabil Kanso – Vietnam
• Bernard Kirschenbaum – Twist for Max (sculpture)
• Joan Miró
  • Hands flying off toward the constellations
  • The hope of a condemned Man (series)
• Odd Nerdrum – Liberation
• Enzo Plazzotta – Crucifixion
• Tony Rosenthal – 5 in 1 (steel sculpture, New York City)
• Ruskin Spear – Harold Wilson
• Graham Sutherland – Lord Goodman
• David Wynne – Boy With a Dolphin (bronze, Cheyne Walk, London)
• Meet the Residents (album cover)

• A Bigger Splash

• 15 May – Kadir Nelson, African American illustrator.
• 31 May – Adrian Tomine, American cartoonist.
• 16 June – Paul Lee, English artist.
• 1 September – Jhonen Vasquez, American comic book artist, cartoonist and writer.
• 8 November – Masashi Kishimoto, Japanese mangaka.
• 13 November – Kerim Seiler, Swiss artist and architect.
• 7 December – Kang Full, South Korean webcomic artist.

Full date unknown edit

• Banksy, English graffiti artist.
• Bogna Burska, Polish playwright and visual artist.
• Amelie Chabannes, French painter and sculptor.
• Luke Jerram, British installation artist.
• Fabrice Lachant, French photographer.
• OSGEMEOS (Otavio and Gustavo Pandolfo), Brazilian twin graffiti artists.
• Dulce Pinzon, Mexican-born visual artist.
• Bojan Šarčević, Bosnian-French visual artist.
• Bedwyr Williams, Welsh installation and performance artist.

January to June edit

• 19 January – Edward Seago, English painter (b. 1910).
• 30 January – Robert Darwin, English painter and Rector of the Royal College of Art (b. 1910)
• 15 February – Petar Lubarda, Serbian painter (b. 1907).
• 4 March – Adolph Gottlieb, American abstract expressionist painter and sculptor (b. 1903).
• 9 March – Daniel O'Neill, Irish painter (b. 1920).
• 5 April – A. Y. Jackson, Canadian painter (b. 1882).
• 31 May – Juan Bautista Garcia, Puerto Rican painter (b. 1904).
• 7 June
  • Émilie Charmy, French artist (b. 1878)
  • Milton Menasco, American painter and art director (b. 1890).
• 22 June – Alain Saint-Ogan, French comics author and artist (b. 1895).
• 30 June – Frank McKelvey, Irish painter (b. 1895).

July to December edit

• 9 July – Georges Ribemont-Dessaignes, French writer and artist (b. 1884).
• 8 August – Charles Wheeler, English sculptor (b. 1892).
• 11 August – Jan Tschichold, German typographer, book designer, teacher and writer (b. 1902).
• August – André Edouard Marty, French artist (b. 1882).
• 8 September – James Swinnerton, American cartoonist and artist (b. 1875).
• 17 September – André Dunoyer de Segonzac, French painter and graphic artist (b. 1884).
• 28 October – David Jones, English poet and painter (b. 1895).
• 1 November – František Muzika, Czech avant-garde painter (b. 1900).
• 20 December – Risto Stijović, Serbian sculptor (b. 1894).
• 21 December – James Henry Govier, English painter (b. 1910).
• 25 December – Harry Kernoff, Irish painter (b. 1900).

• 1974 in Fine Arts of the Soviet Union