List of Famous people who died in 1940

Aleksander Michał Rajchman was a mathematician of the Warsaw School of Mathematics of the Interwar period. He had origins in the Lwów School of Mathematics and contributed to real analysis, probability and mathematical statistics.

Alexander Toluboff was a Russian-born American art director. He was nominated for three Academy Awards in the category Best Art Direction. He was born in Lublin, Poland and died in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan.

Gene Morgan was an American actor. He appeared in 111 films between 1926 and 1941.

Andrey Nikolayevich Rimsky-Korsakov was a Russian musicologist and son of the Russian composers Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov and Nadezhda Rimskaya-Korsakova. He was encouraged in musical pursuits, playing cello in the family string quartet. However he did not pursue music as a career until late in his life.

Otis Harlan was an American comedic actor and voice actor. He is most recognized for providing the voice of "Happy", one of the Seven Dwarfs in the Disney classic Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.

Marie Triepcke Krøyer Alfvén commonly known as Marie Krøyer, was a Danish painter. She is remembered principally as the wife of Peder Severin Krøyer, one of the most successful members of the artists' colony known as the Skagen Painters, which flourished at the end of the 19th century in the far north of Jutland. Marie was also a part of the small group of Danish painters in her own right. From an early age, Marie aspired to become an artist, and after training privately in Copenhagen she went to Paris to continue her studies.There she was educated in the principals of Naturalism, and was influenced greatly by the French Impressionists. It was there, in early 1889, that she met Krøyer, who immediately fell madly in love with her. Although he was sixteen years her senior, the couple married that summer and in 1891 settled in Skagen. Clearly inspired by Marie's beauty, Krøyer had ample opportunity to paint her portraits both indoors and outdoors, especially on the beach. Married life became more difficult as Krøyer experienced periods of mental illness from 1900, and Marie eventually began an affair with the Swedish composer Hugo Alfvén who had also been taken by her beauty. The couple had a child, Marie divorced Krøyer and moved to Sweden with Alfvén. They married in 1912, but marital problems once again resulted in divorce. Marie was reluctant to paint after meeting Krøyer, whom she looked up to as a far more competent artist, and she is remembered more as the subject of some of his best-known paintings than for her own work, although several of her pictures have recently attracted renewed interest. She is now also recognized for her significant contributions to design and architecture.

Édouard Eugène Désiré Branly was a French inventor, physicist and professor at the Institut Catholique de Paris. He is primarily known for his early involvement in wireless telegraphy and his invention of the Branly coherer around 1890.

Eileen Edna Le Poer Power was a British economic historian and medievalist.