Events from the year 1948 in art.

• Summer – The art exhibitions at the Venice Biennale are revived, introducing American abstract expressionism to Europe and part of the Peggy Guggenheim Collection to Venice.
• November 8 – COBRA (avant-garde movement) is formed by Karel Appel, Constant, Corneille, Christian Dotremont, Asger Jorn and Joseph Noiret.
• Georges Braque begins work on his Ateliers.
• The Colony Room Club, a private members' drinking club at 41 Dean Street, Soho, London, is founded and presided over by Muriel Belcher; painter Francis Bacon becomes a member the day after it opens, establishing it as a centre for London's alcoholic artistic elite.^[1]
• Cadillac introduce the car tailfin, to Frank Hershey's design authorized by Harley Earl.

• September 21 until December 5 - Collage (curated by Margaret Miller) at MoMA in New York City.^[2]

• Archibald Prize: William Dobell – Margaret Olley

• Victor Brauner – Meeting with Myself at the four Cats of the World
• Otto Dix – Ecce homo with self-likeness behind barbed wire
• Russell Drysdale – The cricketers
• Rudolf Hausner – It's Me!
• Isabel Lambert – Three Fish^[3]
• Henri Matisse – The Plum Blossoms
• Barnett Newman – Onement I
• Sidney Nolan – The Abandoned Mine
• Jackson Pollock – No. 5, 1948
• Anne Redpath – Window in Menton
• Constance Stokes – Girl in Red Tights (approx. date)
• Rufino Tamayo – Cazadores de mariposas
• Andrew Wyeth
  • Christina's World
  • McVey's Barn
  • Karl

• Wäinö Aaltonen – Kun ystävyyssuhteet solmitaan
• Joseph Cornell – Untitled (Cockatoo and Corks)
• Jacob Epstein – Lazarus
• Marino Marini – The Angel of the City
• Gerda Sprinchorn – Linnéstaty (modeled 1907)
• Iglica
• Thomas W. Talbot Monument

• M. C. Escher
  • Dewdrop (mezzotint)
  • Drawing Hands (lithograph)
  • Stars (wood engraving)

• January 24 – Machiko Satonaka, Japanese manga artist
• March 9 – Eric Fischl, American painter
• March 14 – James Nachtwey, American photojournalist
• April 14 – Berry Berenson, American model and photographer (d. 2001)
• June 30 – Wolf Erlbruch, German children's book illustrator and writer
• July 7 – Alison Wilding, English sculptor and academic
• September 20 – Adrian Piper, American conceptual artist
• October 2 – Donna Karan, American fashion designer
• October 8 – Gottfried Helnwein, Austrian fine artist, photographer, installation and performance artist
• November 1 – Bill Woodrow, British sculptor
• November 18 – Ana Mendieta, Cuban American performance artist (d. 1985)
• December 18 – Mimmo Paladino, Italian sculptor, painter and printmaker
• December 26 – Lin Onus, Scottish-Aboriginal Koori artist (d. 1996)
• Full date unknown
  • Jonathan Lasker, American abstract painter
  • Christopher Makos, American photographer
  • Marilyn Minter, American painter and photographer
  • Roberta Smith, American art critic (The New York Times)
  • Andrew Stevovich, Austrian-born American painter

• January 8 – Kurt Schwitters, German painter, collagist and poet (b. 1887)
• January 21 – Ambrosia Tønnesen, Norwegian sculptor (b. 1859)
• February 23 – Fidus, German illustrator, painter and publisher (b. 1868)
• March 23 – Yevgeniy Abalakov, Soviet sculptor and mountaineer (b. 1907)
• March 24 – Sigrid Hjertén, Swedish modernist painter (b. 1885)
• July 21 – Arshile Gorky, Armenian American painter (b. 1904)
• August – Feliu Elias, Spanish caricaturist and painter (b. 1878)
• September 9 – Ignacy Pieńkowski, Polish painter (b. 1877)
• September 22 – Felicjan Kowarski, Polish painter and sculptor (b. 1885)
• October 17 – Royal Cortissoz, American art critic (b. 1869)
• November 4 – Shinzō Fukuhara, Japanese photographer (b. 1883)
• December 28 – Hakob Gyurjian, Armenian sculptor (b. 1890)
• December 30 – George Ault, American Precisionist painter (b. 1891)
• Date unknown – Hector Hyppolite, Haitian painter (b. 1894)

• 1948 in Fine Arts of the Soviet Union