1855 in art

Events

• May 7 – Royal Academy Exhibition of 1855 opens in London
• July 3 – John Everett Millais and Effie Gray marry.
• May 15–November 15 – Exposition Universelle in Paris, including The Salon of 1855 for art. Gustave Courbet, having had several of his paintings rejected, including the monumental The Painter's Studio, exhibits in a temporary Pavillon du Réalisme adjacent to the official show, creating both public outrage and artistic admiration. The official exhibition includes a retrospective of the paintings of Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres.
• William Bell Scott begins painting murals of Northumbrian history at Wallington Hall.
• The Bavarian National Museum is founded by King Maximilian II of Bavaria.

Awards

• Prix de Rome – Henri-Michel-Antoine Chapu

Works

• Rosa Bonheur – The Horse Fair
• Joanna Mary Boyce – Elgiva
• Ford Madox Brown – The Last of England
• William Shakespeare Burton – The Wounded Cavalier
• Philip Hermogenes Calderon – Lord, Thy Will Be Done
• Théodore Chassériau
• * The Defence of the Gauls by Vercingetorix
• * Macbeth and the Three Witches
• Gustave Courbet – The Artist's Studio (L‘Atelier du Peintre): A Real Allegory of a Seven Year Phase in my Artistic and Moral Life
• Edgar Degas – Self-portrait
• Henry Brueckner - The Marriage of Pocahontas
• William Powell Frith – At the Opera
• Johan Fredrik Höckert – Gudstjänst i Lövmokks fjällkapell
• Paul Huet – The Flood of Saint-Cloud
• George Inness – The Lackawanna Valley
• Elisabeth Jerichau-Baumann – Double portrait of the Brothers Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm
• Eugène Lami – The Battle of the Alma
• Frederic Leighton – Cimabue's Celebrated Madonna
• John Jabez Edwin Mayall – Sergeant Dawson and his Daughter
• John Everett Millais – The Rescue
• Élias Robert with Georges Diebolt – France crowning Art and Industry
• José Rodrigues – O Pobre Rabequista
• Ary Scheffer
• * Francesca da Rimini and Paolo Malatesta Appraised by Dante and Virgil
• * Portrait of Charles Dickens
• Rebecca Solomon – The Story of Balaclava, wherein he spoke of the most disastrous chances
• January Suchodolski – The Death of Cyprian Godebski at Raszyn
• Carl Wahlbom – Death of King Gustav II Adolf at the Battle of Lützen
• Franz Xaver Winterhalter – ''The Empress Eugénie Surrounded by her Ladies in Waiting''

Births

• January 4 – Jean Baptiste Guth, French watercolor portraitist
• January 31 – Karl Uchermann, Norwegian canine painter
• February 11 – Ellen Day Hale, American painter and printmaker
• February 25 – Frederick McCubbin, Australian painter of the Heidelberg School
• March 22 – Dorothy Tennant, English painter
• May 1 – Cecilia Beaux, American portrait painter
• July 30 – James E. Kelly, American sculptor and illustrator
• August 30 – Evelyn De Morgan, English painter
• September 8 – William Friese-Greene, English photographer and cinematographer
• December 25 – Jules Monge, French painter
• Willis E. Davis, American landscape painter
• William John Wainwright, English painter

Deaths

• January 19 – Jean-Baptiste Paulin Guérin, French painter
• March 3 – Copley Fielding, painter
• March 20 – Eugénie Charen, French painter
• April 18 – Jean-Baptiste Isabey, painter
• June 9 – Piotr Michałowski, Polish portrait painter
• June 10 – Jacques-Jean Barre, French engraver and designer of French medals, the Great Seal of France, bank notes and postage stamps
• June 24 – Edward Williams, landscape painter
• August 18 – Amasa Hewins – American portrait, genre, and landscape painter
• September 16 – Benedetto Pistrucci, engraver
• October 21 – Henry Pierce Bone, English enamel painter
• November 3 – François Rude, sculptor date unknown
• * Dimitrije Avramović, Serbian painter.
• * Angelus de Baets, Belgian painter of portraits and architectural subjects
• * Giovanni Paolo Lasinio, Italian engraver
• * Johann Georg Primavesi, German etcher and painter, primarily of landscapes
• * Wendela Gustafva Sparre, Swedish textile artist and member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Art
• * Maxim Vorobiev, Russian Romantic landscape painter