1881 in art
Events from the year 1881 in art.
Events
- April – Sixth Impressionist exhibition in Paris, at Nadar's studio.
- May 2 – The Royal Academy Exhibition of 1881 opens at Burlington House in London
- August 31 – English painters Thomas Cooper Gotch and Caroline Burland Yates marry at Newlyn.
- The Société des Artistes Français is established, with William-Adolphe Bouguereau as its first president.
- Vincent van Gogh returns from study in Brussels to his parents' home in Etten (Netherlands) where he produces a number of early works, including the start of his series of peasant character studies and still lifes.
- Art Gallery of South Australia established in Adelaide.
- St. Louis School and Museum of Fine Arts established at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, under the direction of Halsey Ives.
- Dante Gabriel Rossetti's Ballads and Sonnets published.
Works
- Lawrence Alma-Tadema
- * The Tepidarium
- * Sappho and Alcaeus
- Marie Bashkirtseff – The Studio
- Jules Bastien-Lepage – Pauvre Fauvette
- Alfred Boucher – La Piété Filiale
- Frank Bramley – '
- Lady Butler – Scotland Forever!
- Gustave Caillebotte - 'The Bezique Game '
- Paul Cézanne – Self-portrait with olive wallpaper
- Pierre Puvis de Chavannes – The Poor Fisherman
- John Collier
- * Charles Darwin
- * Sir George Jessel
- Edgar Degas
- * Little Dancer of Fourteen Years
- * Trotting Horse
- Stanhope Forbes – A Street in Brittany
- Aleksander Gierymski – Jewess with Oranges
- Atkinson Grimshaw
- * Boar Lane, Leeds
- * Shipping on the Clyde
- Ralph Hedley – John Graham Lough in His Studio
- Jean-Jacques Henner – Saint Jerome
- Max Klinger – Paraphrases about the Finding of a Glove
- Benjamin Williams Leader – '
- Frederic Leighton
- * Bianca
- * Whispers
- Juan Luna – The Death of Cleopatra
- Édouard Manet
- * Dead Eagle Owl
- * Le Suicidé
- Luc-Olivier Merson – Nôtre-Dame de Paris
- Hendrik Willem Mesdag – Panorama Mesdag
- John Everett Millais
- * Portrait of Benjamin Disraeli
- * Portrait of Alfred Tennyson
- Claude Monet - Waves Breaking
- Albert Joseph Moore
- * Blossoms
- * Yellow Marguerites
- Hjalmar Munsterhjelm – Woodland Pool by Moonlight
- Giovanni Muzzioli – In the Temple of Bacchus
- Jean-François Raffaëlli –
- Vinnie Ream – Admiral David G. Farragut
- Pierre-Auguste Renoir
- * Bay of Naples, Evening
- * Blonde Bather
- * Luncheon of the Boating Party
- * Pink and Blue
- Ilya Repin
- * Polina Strepetova as Lizaveta
- * Portrait of Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky
- Dante Gabriel Rossetti – Found
- Augustus Saint-Gaudens – Admiral David Glasgow Farragut
- John Singer Sargent – Dr. Samuel Jean Pozzi at Home
- Henryk Siemiradzki – The Sword Dance
- William Stott of Oldham – Le Passeur
- Henry Jones Thaddeus – La retour du bracconier
- James Tissot – Goodbye, on the Mersey
- Viktor Vasnetsov
- * Alenushka
- * Three Tsarevnas of the Underground Kingdom
- James McNeill Whistler – Portrait of Lady Meux in two completed versions:
- * Arrangement in Black, No. 5
- * ''Harmony in Pink and Grey''
Births
- January 4 – Wilhelm Lehmbruck, German sculptor
- January 5 – Pablo Gargallo, Aragonese painter and sculptor
- February 4 – Fernand Léger, French painter
- February 11
- * Carlo Carrà, Italian painter
- * Robert Borlase Smart, English painter and critic
- April 10 – William John Leech, Irish painter
- April 16 – Fortunino Matania, Italian-born illustrator and war artist
- July 12 – Natalia Goncharova, Russian theatrical costume and set designer, painter and illustrator
- July 28 – Léon Spilliaert, Belgian symbolist painter and graphic artist
- July 29 – Jessie Traill, Australian printmaker
- August 4 – Wenzel Hablik, Bohemian painter, graphic artist, designer
- October 4 - René Gimpel, French artbdealer
- October 25 – Pablo Picasso, Spanish painter, draughtsman and sculptor
- December 8 – Albert Gleizes, French painter
- December 31 – Max Pechstein, German painter uncertain
- * William Conor, Irish painter
- * Nazmi Ziya Güran, Turkish painter
Deaths
- January 3 – Anna McNeill Whistler, "Whistler's Mother"
- January 24 – James Collinson, English Pre-Raphaelite painter
- February 9 – Jacques-Édouard Gatteaux, French sculptor and medal engraver
- March 11 – Thomas Brigstocke, Welsh portrait painter
- May 24 – Samuel Palmer, English painter, etcher and lithographer
- July 25 – Edward Charles Williams, English landscape painter
- December 6 – Thomas Skinner, English etcher
- December 13 – John Quidor, American painter
- December 14 – Berndt Godenhjelm, Finnish painter
- December 21 - Francesco Hayez, Italian historical, portrait and political painter