List of Famous people who died in 1938

Carl Johan Wilhelm Madsen, commonly known as Karl Madsen, was a Danish painter and art historian with close connections to the Skagen Painters.

Fred Kohler was an American actor.

Fred Spencer was an American animator who worked at Walt Disney Productions. He was considered an authority on Donald Duck and wrote an influential analysis of the character.

Manuel Carrasco i Formiguera, was a Spanish lawyer and Christian democrat Catalan nationalist politician. His execution, by order of Francisco Franco, provoked protests from Catholic journalists such as Joseph Ageorges, the President of the International Federation of Catholic Journalists. Ageorges wrote, "Even more than the death of the Duke of Enghien stained the memory of Napoleon, the death of Carrasco has stained the reputation of Franco". Such protests, in turn, provoked the anger of the Francoist press. His funeral in Paris on 27 April 1938 was attended by many notable people, including Joan Miró, Ossorio y Gallardo, Josep M. de Sagarra, Joaquim Ventalló and Jacques Maritain and his wife Raissa.

William Henry Pickering was an American astronomer. Pickering constructed and established several observatories or astronomical observation stations, notably including Percival Lowell's Flagstaff Observatory. He led solar eclipse expeditions and studied craters on the Moon, and hypothesized that changes in the appearance of the crater Eratosthenes were due to "lunar insects". He spent much of the later part of his life at his private observatory in Jamaica.

George Ellery Hale was an American solar astronomer, best known for his discovery of magnetic fields in sunspots, and as the leader or key figure in the planning or construction of several world-leading telescopes; namely, the 40-inch refracting telescope at Yerkes Observatory, 60-inch Hale reflecting telescope at Mount Wilson Observatory, 100-inch Hooker reflecting telescope at Mount Wilson, and the 200-inch Hale reflecting telescope at Palomar Observatory. He also played a key role in the foundation of the International Union for Cooperation in Solar Research and the National Research Council, and in developing the California Institute of Technology into a leading research university.

Eustace Charles Mordaunt was an English amateur cricketer who played for Kent County Cricket Club and Middlesex County Cricket Club at the turn of the 20th century.

Armand-Albert Rateau (1882–1938) was a French furniture maker and interior designer. In 2006, The Grove Encyclopedia of Decorative Arts characterized him as "the most eminent of the ensembliers, the high-style designer-decorators" who worked with luxury materials for the socially elite. In 2012, Architectural Digest described him as "one of the most exclusive interior designers of the 1920s." Two of his more notable achievements are the bronze furniture of his manufacture and the designs he assembled in decorating the apartment of Jeanne Lanvin.

John Kunkel Small was an American botanist.