1885 in art

Events

• March 24 – Peter Carl Fabergé presents the first imperial Fabergé egg to Maria Feodorovna, wife of Alexander III of Russia, beginning an Easter tradition that continues until 1917.
• May 20 – A letter, "A Woman's Plea", published in The Times of London protests against the use of nude models in art. Signed "British Matron" it is in fact written by painter and senior Royal Academician John Callcott Horsley.
• June – Paul Gauguin returns to Paris from Copenhagen where he has been unsuccessful in reconciling with his wife.
• July 13 – New building for the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, designed by Pierre Cuypers, opens.
• August – First public display of works by Vincent van Gogh, in the windows of the art dealer Leurs at The Hague.
• "Glasgow Boys" first exhibit collectively, at the Glasgow Institute of the Fine Arts.
• Aberdeen Art Gallery opens in Scotland.
• Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery opens in England.
• The Guildhall Art Gallery opens in the City of London.
• The E. B. Crocker Art Gallery is presented to the people of Sacramento, California.
• The Opponenterna, a group of Swedish artists, demands that the Royal Swedish Academy of Fine Arts be modernized.

Awards

• June 26 – John Everett Millais granted a baronetcy in the United Kingdom, the first artist to accept a hereditary title.

Works

• Lawrence Alma-Tadema – A Reading from Homer
• Michael Ancher – Vil han klare pynten
• William-Adolphe Bouguereau – The Young Shepherdess
• Frank Bramley
• * Everyone His Own Tale
• * '
• Ernest Christophe – La Fatalité
• John Collier – Circe
• Albert Dubois-Pillet '
• * Ankerplaats
• * Bouquet of Roses in a Vase
• * Landscape with a Lock
• * Still Life with Fish
• * View of Paris
• * Winter Landscape
• Thomas Eakins – The Swimming Hole
• Albert Edelfelt – Portrait of Louis Pasteur
• Henri Fantin-Latour – Around the Piano
• Luke Fildes – Venetians
• Stanhope Forbes – A Fish Sale on a Cornish Beach
• Paul Gauguin
• * Self-portrait
• * Women Bathing
• Jean-Léon Gérôme – The Great Bath at Bursa
• Frederick Goodall – The Finding of Moses
• Ellen Day Hale – Self-portrait
• Winslow Homer – The Fog Warning
• Edwin Long – The Chosen Five
• Juan Luna
• * Chula series
• * Odalisque
• Jan Matejko – Bohdan Khmelnytsky with Tuhaj Bej near Lviv
• Anna Lea Merritt – Eve Overcome with Remorse
• John Everett Millais – The Ruling Passion
• Charles William Mitchell – Hypatia
• Claude Monet -
• *Meadow with Haystacks near Giverny
• *The Cliffs at Etretat
• Henri-Paul Motte – The Fiancee of Belus
• Walter Osborne – Feeding the Chickens
• Anna Palm – A game of l'hombre in Brøndums Hotel
• Pierre-Auguste Renoir – Girl Braiding Her Hair
• Ilya Repin – Ivan the Terrible and His Son Ivan, 16 November 1581
• Tom Roberts – Winter morning after rain, Gardiner's Creek
• John Singer Sargent
• * Claude Monet Painting by the Edge of a Wood
• * '
• * Robert Louis Stevenson and his wife
• Therese Schwartze – Three girls from the Amsterdam Orphanage
• Pinckney Marcius-Simons - The Child Canova Modeling a Lion out of Butter
• Marie Spartali Stillman – Love's Messenger
• Marianne Stokes – Homeless
• James Tissot
• * The Bridesmaid
• * The Shop Girl
• William Greene Turner – Oliver Perry Monument
• Vincent van Gogh
• * The Potato Eaters
• * Cottages series
• * Old Church Tower at Nuenen series
• * Peasant Character Studies
• * Still life paintings
• * Two Paintings of Amsterdam
• Hubert von Herkomer – Hard Times
• John William Waterhouse – Saint Eulalia
• George Frederic Watts
• * '
• * Mammon
• * The Minotaur
• W. L. Wyllie
• * A Dying Giant
• * ''''

Births

• January 21 – Duncan Grant, Scottish painter
• February 18 – Henri Laurens, French sculptor
• February 24 – Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz, Polish painter, playwright and novelist
• March 3 – Cecil Thomas, English bronze sculptor and medallist
• March 31 – Pascin, Bulgarian-born painter and draftsman
• April 4 – Leonardo Dudreville, Italian painter
• April 8 – Norman Clyde, American mountaineer, nature photographer and naturalist
• April 12 – Robert Delaunay, French painter
• May 8 – Charles Walter Simpson, English painter of nature and teacher
• May 9 – Gianni Vella, Maltese painter and cartoonist
• May 12 – Mario Sironi, Italian painter
• June 27
• * Arthur Lismer, English-born Canadian painter, member of the Group of Seven
• * James Sleator, Irish painter
• July 5 – André Lhote, French painter and sculptor
• July 11 – Roger de La Fresnaye, French cubist painter
• July 15 – Josef Frank, Austrian-born architect and designer
• August 15 – Nancy Cox-McCormack, American portrait sculptor
• August 26 – Gwen Raverat, née Darwin, English wood engraver
• August 30 – Paul Gösch, German artist and architect
• September 9 – Clare Sheridan, English sculptor and author
• September 12 – Heinrich Hoffmann, German propaganda photographer
• October 15 – Jóhannes Sveinsson Kjarval, Icelandic painter
• October 21 – Jan Altink, Dutch painter
• November 14 – Sonia Delaunay, Ukrainian-French artist
• December 25? – Lucienne Heuvelmans, French sculptor date unknown – Branko Radulović, Serbian painter

Deaths

• January 20 – Joseph Niklaus Bütler, Swiss painter
• April 18 – Rudolf Eitelberger, Austrian art historian
• April 29 – Ernst Joachim Förster, German painter
• June 12 – Adolf Mosengel, German landscape painter
• June 13 – Carl Arnold Gonzenbach, Swiss painter
• July 23 – Pierre Alexandre Schoenewerk, French sculptor
• August 30 – Thomas Thornycroft, English sculptor
• September 6 – Narcís Monturiol, Spanish artist and engineer
• September 23 – Carl Spitzweg, German painter
• October 9 – John Bowes, English art collector
• December 5 – Wilhelm Ripe, German painter
• December 11 – James Fahey, English landscape painter
• December 30 – Martha Darley Mutrie, British painter date unknown – Girolamo Masini, Italian sculptor