1879 in art

Events

• April 10 – May 11 – Fourth Impressionist exhibition in Paris, arranged by Gustave Caillebotte at 28 avenue de l'Opéra.
• Ford Madox Brown begins painting The Manchester Murals in Manchester Town Hall.
• Chicago Academy of Fine Arts established.
• Guimet Museum of Asian art established in Lyon, France.
• Museum of Fine Arts Berne established in Switzerland.
• Kate Greenaway's first book, with her own colour illustrations, Under the Window: Pictures & Rhymes for Children, is published in London.

Works

• Michael Ancher – Vil han klare pynten
• Albert Fitch Bellows – The Parsonage
• William-Adolphe Bouguereau – The Birth of Venus
• William Burges – Golden Bed
• Edward Burne-Jones – '
• John Ward Dunsmore – Portrait of Thomas Couture on His Deathbed
• Edgar Degas
• * The Dance Lesson
• * Diego Martelli
• * Miss La La at the Cirque Fernando
• * Portrait of Edmond Duranty
• * '
• * Portraits at the Stock Exchange
• Gustave Achille Guillaumet – Laghouat in the Algerian Sahara
• Ivan Kramskoi – Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin
• Jules Joseph Lefebvre – Diana Surprised
• George Dunlop Leslie – Alice in Wonderland
• John Seymour Lucas – The Gordon Riots
• Édouard Manet
• * ‘’Chez le Père Lathuille’’
• * The Café-Concert
• * Self-Portrait with Palette
• * In the Conservatory
• John Everett Millais
• * Cherry Ripe
• * Portrait of Louise Jopling
• * Portrait of William Ewart Gladstone
• * Princess Elizabeth in Prison at St James's
• Albert Joseph Moore – Topaz
• Vasily Perov – Pugachev's Judgement
• Pierre-Auguste Renoir – The Dreamer
• John Singer Sargent
• *
• * Portrait of Carolus-Duran
• Charlotte Schreiber – The Croppy Boy
• James Tissot – ''Mrs. Newton with a Parasol''

Births

• January 13 – William Reid Dick, Scottish sculptor
• March 27 – Edward Steichen, American photographer, painter, and art gallery and museum curator
• June 4 – Mabel Lucie Attwell, English illustrator
• July 26 – Maria Bal, Polish model
• September 23 – Charles Camoin, French painter
• October 22 – Sir Matthew Smith, English painter
• November 18 – Sybil Pye, English bookbinder
• December 18 – Paul Klee, Swiss painter

Deaths

• January 26 – Julia Margaret Cameron, British photographer in Ceylon
• February 10 – Honoré Daumier, French painter, sculptor and caricaturist
• March 21 – Valentine Bartholomew, English flower painter
• March 27 – Hércules Florence, French-born Brazilian painter and pioneer photographer
• March 30 – Thomas Couture, French painter and art teacher
• May 8 – Henry Collen, English royal miniature portrait painter
• June 24 – Eliseo Sala, Italian painter
• July 7 – George Caleb Bingham, American realist artist
• July 16 – Frederick Langenheim, German American pioneer of panoramic photography
• July 17 – Maurycy Gottlieb, Polish Jewish painter
• August 3 – Joseph Severn, English portrait and subject painter
• September 5 – Camille Doncieux, French first wife and model of Claude Monet
• September 6 – Amédée de Noé, French caricaturist
• September 8 – William Morris Hunt, American painter
• November 2 – Abbondio Sangiorgio, Italian sculptor
• November 18 – André Giroux, French painter and photographer
• December 1 – Franz Ittenbach, German religious painter
• Chō Kōran, Japanese poet and nanga artist