1986 in art

Events

21 May – Eighteen Old Master paintings from the Beit collection are stolen from Russborough House in Ireland by Martin "The General" Cahill, the second major art theft from this location.
19 August – Two weeks after it was stolen, the Picasso painting Weeping Woman is found in a locker at Spencer Street Station in Melbourne, Australia.
Opening of the Musée d'Orsay (formerly the Gare d'Orsay) in Paris.

Animals in Pools, Portland, Oregon
Aurora (Asawa), San Francisco
Chinatown Gateway, Portland, Oregon
Cornet (sculpture), Galveston, Texas
Einstein Gargoyle, Eugene, Oregon
Houston Triptych, Houston, Texas
Mohandas Gandhi (Patel), New York City
John Buckley – The Headington Shark (Untitled 1986; painted fibreglass sculpture)
John Doubleday – Royal Marines Commando Memorial (Lympstone, England)
David Hockney – Pearblossom Highway #2 (photocollage)
Igor Mitoraj – Heros de Lumiere
Odd Nerdrum – Return of the Sun
Andrew Wyeth – Flood Plain
Jamie Wyeth – Kalounna in Frogtown (Terra Foundation for American Art)

6 March – Georgia O'Keeffe American artist (b. 1887).
26 April – Dechko Uzunov, Bulgarian painter (b. 1899).
11 May – Henry Plumer McIlhenny, American art collector, philanthropist and chairman of Philadelphia Art Museum (b. 1910).
31 May – Jane Frank, American painter, sculptor, mixed media artist and textile artist (b. 1918).
9 June – Ilona Harima, Finnish painter (b. 1911).

7 April – Cecil King, Irish abstract-minimalist painter (b. 1921).
30 June – Guan Zilan, Chinese avant-garde painter (b. 1903)
22 July – Floyd Gottfredson, American cartoonist (b. 1905).
31 August – Henry Moore, English artist and sculptor (b. 1898).
9 September – Albert Malet, French painter (b. 1912).
12 September
- Jacques Henri Lartigue, French photographer and painter (b. 1894).
- Ernst Haas, Austrian photographer (b. 1921).
11 October – Barker Fairley, English-born Canadian painter, writer, and educator (b. 1887).
23 October – Conrad O'Brien-ffrench, British intelligence officer, mountaineer and painter (b.1893).