Events from the year 1946 in art.

• March – Art collector Peggy Guggenheim publishes the first edition of her autobiographical Out of This Century in the United States.
• April 2 – Jackson Pollock's third solo exhibition opens in the Daylight Gallery of Peggy Guggenheim's The Art of This Century gallery on Manhattan.
• May 22 – The Equestrian statue of Christian V recast in bronze by Einar Utzon-Frank (1688 original by Abraham-César Lamoureux) is unveiled on Kongens Nytorv, Copenhagen.
• October 11 – National Gallery of Bosnia and Herzegovina established in Sarajevo.
• October 24 – In a double ceremony, Max Ernst (having been divorced from Peggy Guggenheim) marries Dorothea Tanning and Man Ray marries Juliet P. Browner in Beverly Hills, California.
• The Vienna School of Fantastic Realism is founded by Ernst Fuchs, Rudolf Hausner, and others.
• The Borough Group of artists is founded in London by Cliff Holden.
• Jean Dubuffet exhibits the series of works with paint mixed with sand and gravel, Hautes Pâtes, at the Galérie René Drouin.
• Jacob Lawrence begins painting his War Series.
• Sidney Nolan begins his first series of paintings of Ned Kelly.
• David Olère begins to produce artworks based on his experiences as Jewish Sonderkommando inmate 106144 of Auschwitz concentration camp during World War II.
• Musée de la Chartreuse, Molsheim, France, established (at this time under the name "Musée municipal")

• Archibald Prize: William Dargie – L C Robson, MC, MA

• Harold Abbott – Triptych of Suffering
• George Ault – Bright Light at Russell's Corners
• Francis Bacon
  • Painting (1946)
  • Study for Man with Microphones (later abandoned and slashed by the artist)
• Charles Comfort – Dieppe Raid
• Dean Cornwell – The History of Transportation (lobby mural at 10 Rockefeller Plaza in New York City, at this time the headquarters of Eastern Airlines)^[1]
• Salvador Dalí – The Temptation of St. Anthony
• Jean Dubuffet – Apartment Houses
• Jacob Epstein – Bust of Winston Churchill
• M. C. Escher – lithographs
  • Magic Mirror
  • Three Spheres II
• Sawlaram Haldankar – Glow of Hope
• Barbara Hepworth – sculptures
  • Pelagos
  • Tides
• Edward Hopper – Approaching a City
• Dame Laura Knight – The Dock, Nuremberg
• L. S. Lowry – Good Friday, Daisy Nook
• Henri Matisse – L'Asie
• Georgia O'Keeffe – Bare Tree Trunks With Snow
• Pablo Picasso – Woman-Flower
• Ad Reinhardt – How to Look at Modern Art in America^[2]
• Norman Rockwell – "Boy in a Dining Car"^[3]
• William Scott – The Frying Pan
• Andrew Wyeth – Winter 1946
• Jack Butler Yeats
  • Men of Destiny
  • The Whistle of a Jacket

• Contemporary British Art – Toledo Museum of Art, Ohio, the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York, and the City Art Museum, St Louis.

• January 8 – Betty Beaumont, Canadian American site-specific artist, all media
• January 10 – Kalidas Karmakar, Bangladeshi artist (d. 2019)
• January 18 – Kirk Varnedoe, American art historian, writer and curator (d. 2003)
• January 26 – Timothy Clifford, English art historian and curator
• February 9 – Peter Linde, Swedish sculptor
• April 11 – Chris Burden, American performance and installation artist and sculptor (d. 2015)
• April 27 – Nicholas Serota, English curator
• May 30 – Jan de Bie, painter and photographer (d. 2021)
• June 29 – Egon von Fürstenberg, Swiss fashion designer (d. 2004)
• July 6 – Jamie Wyeth, American realist painter
• July 11 – Chris Killip, Manx-born documentary photographer (d. 2020)
• July 25 – Nicole Farhi, French sculptor and fashion designer
• September 27 – T. C. Cannon, Native American painter (d. 1978)
• November 4 – Robert Mapplethorpe, American photographer (d. 1989)
• November 5 – Herman Brood, Dutch musician, painter and media personality (d. 2001)
• November 20 – Alice Aycock, American sculptor and installation artist
• December 2 – Gianni Versace, Italian fashion designer (k. 1997)
• December 8 – Jacques Bourboulon, French nude and fashion photographer
• December 12 – Don Gummer, American sculptor
• December 25 – Christopher Frayling, English cultural historian

• January 2 – O'Galop (Marius Rossillon), French cartoonist (b. 1867)
• January 23 – Helene Schjerfbeck, Finnish painter (b. 1862)
• February 17
  • Dorothy Gibson, American artist's model and silent film actress (b. 1889)
  • Sir George Pirie, Scottish painter (b. 1863)
• July 11 – Paul Nash, English painter (b. 1889)
• July 13 – Alfred Stieglitz, American photographer (b. 1864)
• July 17 – Florence Fuller, Australian painter (b. 1867)
• October 7 - C. R. W. Nevinson, English war artist (b. 1889)
• October 28 – Manuel Ortiz de Zárate, Chilean painter (b. 1887)
• October 30 – Charles Despiau, French sculptor (b. 1874)
• November 23
  • Arthur Dove, American abstract painter (b. 1880)
  • Léon Spilliaert, Belgian symbolist painter and graphic artist (b. 1881)
• November 24 – László Moholy-Nagy, Hungarian painter and photographer (b. 1895)
• December 28 – Elie Nadelman, Polish-born American sculptor (b. 1882)
• December 29 – Arnold Friedman, American Modernist painter (b. 1874)