1879 in art
Events from the year 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