Timeline

CULTURAL & WORLD EVENTS

A painting of Frans Hals sold by Sotheby's in 2011 is reassessed as a fake. Artnet.com first issues on "The Year of the Fake" - a report on the forgeries which rocked the artworld in 2016. Donald Trump is elected as the US President.

Art & Culture exhibition China: Through the Looking Glass, curated by Andrew Bolton opens at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

Umbrella Movement - massive protests in Hong Kong.

Art Basel launches its first fair in Hong Kong. Ink Art: Past as Present in Contemporary China exhibition in Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

Swiss art collector Uli Sigg donates a large part of his collection of Chinese contemporary art to M+ Museum in Hong Kong.

Exhibition of The Forbidden City at the Louvre, Emperors of China & Kings of France at the Louvre Museum in Paris, France.

Paintings of Picasso, Matisse, Modigliani... are stolen from Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris.

UNESCO launches the World Digital Library.

Barack Obama is elected as the 44th President of the United States. Summer Olympic Games takes place in Beijing, China.

52th Venice Biennale.

400th anniversary of the birth of Rembrandt.

The World Trade Organization Conference takes place in Hong Kong.

George W. Bush is re-elected as US President.

The World Health Organization issues a global alert on Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS). Chine closes its border and airports.

Frida, a biopic of painter Frida Kahlo premières at the Venice International Film Festival. Banksy creates Balloon Girl.

9/11 terrorist attack in New York City, 3000 people die and an estimated $100 million worth of art is destroyed.

The Tate Modern opens in London.

Leonardo da Vinci's The Last Supper is placed back on display in Milan, Italy after two decades of restoration. The restoration of Sistine Chapel frescoes is completed in the Vatican City.

The new Hong Kong International Airport at Chek Lap Kok opens, while the old Kai Tak Airport closes.

Sovereignty over Hong Kong is transferred to China from the United Kingdom. Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, designed by Frank Gehry, is opened.

Vietnamese boat people in Hong Kong stage a protest due to their forced repatriation.

Jacques Chirac is elected President of France. English painter Lucian Freud paints Benefits Supervisor Sleeping.

The Scream painted by Edvard Munch is stolen in Oslo. Kurt Cobain commits suicide. Nelson Mandela is inaugurated as South Africa's first black president.

Bill Clinton becomes the US President. Paul Cézanne still life painting Les Grosses Pommes sells for record breaking price in New York.

Exhibition of Young British Artists at Saatchi Gallery in London, the acronym term YBA starts to prevail and designates a new group in contemporary art history.

Basketball player Magic Johnson announces he has HIV. Damien Hirst creates The Physical Impossibility of death in the Mind of Someone Living.

Reunification of Germany. The largest Art Theft in US history: 13 artworks worth over $500 million are stolen from Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, Massachusetts.

Tiananmen Square incident in China, triggered by the death Hu Yaobang. Berlin Wall falls.

National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts in West District, Taichung City opens. François Mitterrand is re-elected as President of France.

Musée d'art moderne (Saint-Étienne) opens in Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, France. Van Gogh's Sunflowers and Irises sell for record high prices. The Last Emperor directed by Bernardo Bertolucci premieres at the Tokyo Film Festival.

Musée d'Orsay opens in Paris. Gilbert and George win Turner Prize. Dalai Lama meets Pope John Paul II in India. Oprah Winfrey Show is first broadcast nationally in the US.

Charity single We Are the World is recorded for Africa. Mickey Mouse is welcomed in China. Wreck of the Titanic found.

Signing of the Sino-British Joint Declaration, agreement on the handover of Hong Kong to China in 1997. US President Ronald Reagan visits China. Prince release his album Purple Rain. Japan beats US for Olympic gold medal in baseball.

Jean Tinguely and Niki de Saint Phalle unveil Stravinsky Fountain near Centre Pompidou in Paris.

E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial movie directed by Steven Spielberg is released. Michael Jackson releases his album Thriller.

François Mitterrand becomes President of France. According to the will of Picasso, Guernica is returned to Madrid from New York. China Daily is founded. Beginning of the AIDS epidemic.

John Lennon is assassinated. Ronald Reagan is elected as the US President. CNN (The Cable News Network) is founded in the US.

US and China establish diplomatic relations. One Child Policy is implemented in China. Sino-Vietnamese War begins. The Xing Xing ("Star Group") of Chinese avant-garde artists stage an illegal exhibition outside the National Art Museum of China in Beijing, it marks the birth of Chinese Contemporary Art.

China and Japan sign peace treaty.

Jimmy Carter becomes US President. The Star Wars movie is released and creates a global pop culture phenomenon.

Death of Mao Zedong. End of the Cultural Revolution in China. Tangshan earthquake in China kills over 240,000. North & South Vietnam join to form the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. Apple computer is founded.

Rembrandt's painting The Night Watch is being attacked and slashed at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, Holland. Fall of Saigon, Vietnam. Microsoft is founded.

Terracotta Army is discovered in China.

US President Richard Nixon announces "Peace with honour" for Vietnam.

US President Richard Nixon visits China. BBC Television broadcast the art series programme Ways of Seeing. The Godfather directed by Francis Ford Coppola premieres in New York City.

Construction of the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris begins. The United Nations General Assembly admits the People's Republic of China. Taiwan leaves the UN.

First edition of Art Basel in Basel, Switzerland. The Beatles splits.

American astronaut Neil Armstrong walks on the moon. David Bowie release Space Oddity. The first Woodstock Festival. Massive anti Vietnam war demonstrations in the US.

Martin Luther King is assassinated. Prague Spring. Massive protests and strikes in France. Stanley Kubrick's 2001 Space Odyssey is released.

The European Communities is created.

Start of the Cultural Revolution in China. English musician David Bowie releases his 1st single Can't Help Thinking About Me. Flood of the Arno in Florence, Italy, destroyed numerous artworks and books.

US sends troops to Vietnam. American Artist Donald Judd starts his minimalistic "specific objects" creation.

France and China establish diplomatic relations. The Beatles become popular in the US.

Martin Luther King delivers his I Have a Dream speech. US President JF Kennedy is assisnated.

National Art Museum of China opens in Beijing. Andy Warhol exhibits his Campbell's Soup Can. The Beatles release their 1st record Love Me Do. The first James Bond movie Dr. No premieres in London.

Berlin Wall is built.

In France artistic movement Nouveau Réalisme begins. Release of the film Breathless directed by Jean-Luc Godard the Pope of the New Wave.

The Sound of Music opens on broadway. The Cuban Revolution. Dalai Lama flees to India. Liu Shaoqi becomes the President of the People's Republic of China.

Chinese leader Mao Zedong launches the "Great Leap Forward" movement in China. NASA is founded.

The Lady of the Camellias premieres in Beijing, the first western opera to be presented in China.

Shanghai Art Museum opens.

American artist Jasper Johns paints Flag. Movie The Seven Year Itch premières in New York.

French painter Henri Matisse & sculptor René Iché pass away.

Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in Westminster Abbey. Francis Bacon paints Study after Velázquez's Portrait of Pope Innocent X.

Musical Singing in the Rain is released.

Korean War. Picasso paints Massacre in Korea.

Russian painter Vladimir Tretchikoff paints Chinese Girl, popularly known as "The Green Lady".

Mao Zedong proclaims the establishment of the People's Republic of China. Germany was divided into West Germany and East Germany.

Gandhi is assassinated.

French fashion designer Christian Dior introduces the "New Look" in women's fashion in Paris. American business magnate and philanthropist John D Rockefeller Jr donates NYC East River site to the United Nations.

British Prime Minister Winston Churchill gives his "Iron Curtain" speech, beginning of Cold War.

Atomic Bombs dropped in Hiroshima and Nagazaki, Japan. End of the 2nd World War. United Nations is founded.

Casablanca wins the 16th Academy Awards. Gandhi freed from prison.

Continuation of the 1942 famine in China.

Mao Zedong gives his speech at the Yan'an Forum on literature and art. American painter Edward Hopper paints Nighthawks.

Pacific War begins. Chinese Civil War resumes. National Gallery of Art opens in Washington D.C.

Spanish artist Salvador Dalí paints The Face of War.

World War 2 begins. Chinese painter Xu Bei-Hong paints Put Down Your Whip.

The Night of Broken Glass (Kristallnacht) in Germany.

Japan invades China, 2nd Sino-Japanese War begins. The Golden Gate Bridge is completed in San Francisco. Picasso paints Guernica.

English comic actor Charles Chaplin directs film Modern Time. Spanish Civil War begins.

The Eastman Kodak Company introduces the first colour film "Kodachrome".

Mao Zedong leads the "Long March".

Formation of the "Chinese Students Art Association" in Paris, France.

Establishment of Manchukuo, a puppet state of Imperial Japan, in the North of China.

Japan invades China, 1st Sino-Japanese War begins. Empire State Building completed.

Chinese Communist leader Mao Zedong writes A Single Spark Can Start a Prairie Fire. The comic strip Mickey Mouse first appears.

Stock market crashes, beginning of the Great Depression. Museum of Modern Arts (MOMA) opens in New York City, exhibits the works of Cézanne, Gauguin, Seurat and van Gogh.

Chinese educator Cai Yuanpei founded the National Academy of Arts in Hangzhou, painter Lin Feng Mien is appointed as the president. Chiang Kai-Shek becomes Director of the State Council of China.

First Phase of Chinese Civil War begins (1927 - 1937). Golden age of Parisian influence on Chinese art (1927-1937).

French painter Claude Monet dies. Spanish Catalan architect Antoni Gaudí dies without having finished the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona. Film maker Fritz Lang directs Metropolis.

The 1st issue of New Yorker magazine, The Great Gatsby by F Scott Fitzgerald, and Mein Kampf by Adolf Hitler are published.

French writer André Breton publishes the first Surrealist Manifesto.

French painter Henri Matisse paints Odalisque with Raised Arms.

BBC is founded, begins radio broadcast.

Communist Party of China is established.

Chinese female writer Eileen Chang is born in Shanghai.

Treaty of Versailles is signed in France, Germany renounces, in favour of Japan, all its rights, titles and privileges in China; preparing the conditions for the outbreak of the Second War World. Rodin Museum opens in Paris.

End of First World War.

Satie / Massine / Picasso's ballet Parade premieres in Paris. Marcel Duchamp creates the Fountain. Beginning of Dadaism. French sculptor Auguste Rodin dies.

Modigliani paints A Reclining Nude.

Japan claims economic control of China.

First World War begins. French painter Claude Monet starts painting the water lilies series.

New York Armory Show, the first large exhibition of modern art in America, introduces Picasso, Marcel Duchamp and Henri Matisse to the US. Russian composer Igor Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring is premiered in Paris, France.

End of Qing dynasty in China. The first Republic of China is established by Dr. Sun Yat-Sen.