1837 in art

Events

• January 20 – Death of the neo-classical architect Sir John Soane gives effect to the creation of his London house as Sir John Soane's Museum.
• May 1 – The Royal Academy Exhibition of 1837 opens at the National Gallery in London, the first to be held following the Academy's move from its former home Somerset House
• June 1 – The Government-funded Normal School of Design, predecessor of the Royal College of Art, begins classes at Somerset House in London.
• June 10 – Galerie des Batailles at the Palace of Versailles in France, designed by Pierre-François-Léonard Fontaine with Frédéric Nepveu for the display of sculptures and historical paintings, is opened.
• July – Edward Lear leaves Knowsley Hall in England to travel to Rome.
• Art Union of London founded.
• Marie Louise Élisabeth Vigée-Lebrun publishes the second volume of her memoirs.

Awards

• Prix de Rome – Thomas Couture
• Knighthood – Augustus Wall Callcott

Works

• Ditlev Blunck – Danske kunstnere på et romersk osteri
• Léon Cogniet – The Battle of Heliopolis
• Joseph-Désiré Court –The Wedding of Leopold I of Belgium and Louise of Orléans
• David d'Angers – Philopoemen Wounded
• Eugène Delacroix
• *murals in Salon du Roi, Chamber of Deputies of France, Palais Bourbon, Paris
• *Self-portrait
• Benjamin Duterrau – portrait of Derrimut
• William Dyce – Francesca da Rimini
• William Etty –
• * Mars, Venus and Cupid
• * The Sirens and Ulysses
• Caspar David Friedrich – Landscape with Owl, Grave, and Coffin
• Nicolas Gosse – Napoleon Receiving the Queen of Prussia at Tilsit
• Edwin Landseer – The Old Shepherd's Chief Mourner
• Charles Robert Leslie – Florizel and Perdita
• John Martin
• *Manfred and the Witch of the Alps
• *Manfred on the Jungfrau
• Wijnand Nuijen – Shipwreck off a Rocky Coast
• Henry William Pickersgill – Portrait of John Conroy
• Camille Roqueplan – Van Dyck in London
• Juan Mauricio Rugendas – Battle of Maipú
• Geskel Saloman – portrait of Smetana
• Hendrik Scheffer – The Battle of Cassel
• Clarkson Stanfield
• * Beilstein on the Moselle
• * On the Scheldt near Leiskenshoeck
• Joseph von Führich – The Road to Emmaus Appearance
• David Wilkie
• *Josephine and the Fortune-Teller
• *''Portrait of William IV''

Births

• January – Daniel Cottier, Scottish artist and designer
• January 1 – Adolf Mosengel, German landscape painter
• January 27 – Tomioka Tessai, Japanese painter and calligrapher in Meiji period
• February 12 – Thomas Moran, English-born American landscape painter of the Hudson River School
• March 27 – John MacWhirter, Scottish landscape painter
• April 10 – Tranquillo Cremona, Italian painter
• May 8 – Alphonse Legros, French painter and etcher
• June 8 – Ivan Kramskoi, Russian painter and art critic
• July 4 – Carolus-Duran, French painter
• December 18 – Ernest Hoschedé, French businessman and collector of Impressionist paintings

Deaths

• January 11 – Baron François Gérard, French painter
• January 29 – Andrew Plimer, British artist specialised in portrait miniatures
• February 8 – Ernst Willem Jan Bagelaar, Dutch engraver
• February 17 – Johann Baptist von Lampi the Younger, Austrian portrait painter
• February 27 – Françoise-Jeanne Ridderbosch, Belgian painter and engraver
• March 8 – Domingos Sequeira, Portuguese painter
• March 16 – François-Xavier Fabre, French painter of historical subjects
• March 31 – John Constable, English landscape painter
• May 18 – Marguerite Gérard, French painter and etcher
• August – Henry Behnes, English sculptor
• September 18 – Pietro Fontana, Italian engraver
• December 28 – Boris Orlovsky, Russian sculptor date unknown
• * Juliane Wilhelmine Bause, German landscape etcher
• * Thomas Richmond, English miniature-painter
• * Charles Henry Schwanfelder, English animal, landscape and portrait painter
• * Yi Jaegwan, Korean genre works painter in the late Joseon period