1888 in art
The year 1888 in art involved some significant events.
Events
- January 26 – Paul Gauguin leaves Paris to rejoin the Pont-Aven School of artists in Brittany, where he will remain until October and meet with Émile Bernard
- February – Fifth annual exhibition of Les XX, at the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium in Brussels. Artists invited to show in addition to members of the group include Henri-Edmond Cross, Albert Dubois-Pillet, Odilon Redon, Paul Signac, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec and James McNeill Whistler
- February 21 – Vincent van Gogh moves to Arles where he will be very productive as a painter
- March – Van Gogh begins his Langlois Bridge at Arles series
- March 22 – Fourth exhibition by the Société des Artistes Indépendants opens in Paris; it includes three paintings by van Gogh
- June – Van Gogh visits Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer
- July 14
- * The Monument à Léon Gambetta, by Jean-Paul Aubé, is inaugurated at the Louvre
- * Critic Emile Hennequin drowns at Samois-sur-Seine before his protégé Odilon Redon
- August – Van Gogh begins his Décoration for the Yellow House at Arles including the Arles Sunflowers series of paintings
- August 11 – James McNeill Whistler marries fellow-artist Beatrice Godwin, widow of architect E. W. Godwin, and they spend a working honeymoon in France
- October 3 – Leeds City Art Gallery in England opens
- October 23 – Paul Gauguin joins van Gogh in Arles, bringing Émile Bernard's painting Le Pardon de Pont-Aven
- December 23 – Having quarrelled with Gauguin, van Gogh cuts off the lower part of his own left ear, taking it to a brothel, and is removed to the local hospital
- Paul Ranson, Paul Sérusier and Maurice Denis become fellow students at the Académie Julian and form Les Nabis
- The weekly illustrated newspaper The Graphic commissions and exhibits in London 21 paintings of Shakespeare's heroines
- William De Morgan moves his London art pottery from Merton Abbey to Fulham
- Publication in English of Irish-born writer George Moore's autobiographical novel Confessions of a Young Man describing bohemian life in 1870s Paris among the Impressionist painters
Exhibitions
Works
- Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema – The Roses of Heliogabalus
- Reinhold Begas – Centaur and Nymph
- Émile Bernard
- * Le Pardon de Pont-Aven
- * Brothel Scene, for Vincent
- * Self-portrait with portrait of Paul Gauguin
- * The Yellow Tree
- Joseph Boehm
- * Equestrian statue of the Duke of Wellington
- * Queen Victoria Statue
- William-Adolphe Bouguereau – The First Mourning
- Edward Burne-Jones – The Nativity
- Gustave Caillebotte
- * The Plain of Gennevilliers
- * Sailing boats at Argenteuil
- Charles Calverley - Statue of Robert Burns (Albany, New York)
- Émile Friant - La Toussaint
- Philip Hermogenes Calderon – Juliet
- William Merritt Chase
- * The Blue Kimono
- * Modern Magdalen
- * Portrait of a Lady in Pink
- Charles Conder – A holiday at Mentone
- David Edward Cronin – Fugitive Slaves in the Dismal Swamp, Virginia
- Édouard Detaille – Le Rêve
- Alexander Doyle – William Jasper Monument
- James Ensor – The Entry of Christ into Brussels in 1889
- Akseli Gallen-Kallela – Démasquée
- Andrew Carrick Gow – A Lost Cause
- Paul Gauguin
- * Madame Ginoux
- * The Painter of Sunflowers
- * Self-Portrait with Portrait of Émile Bernard
- * Vision After the Sermon
- Alfred Gilbert – Statue of Queen Victoria
- Antonio Gisbert Pérez - Execution of Torrijos and his Companions on the Beach at Málaga
- Peder Severin Krøyer – Hip, Hip, Hurrah!
- Frederic Leighton – Captive Andromache
- William Logsdail – St Martin-in-the-Fields
- Cesare Maccari – Cicero Denounces Catiline
- John Everett Millais – Portrait of Arthur Sullivan
- Albert Joseph Moore – A River Side
- Philip Richard Morris – Audrey
- Giovanni Muzzioli – The Funeral of Britannicus
- Ilya Repin
- * Saint Nicholas of Myra saves three innocents from death
- * They Did Not Expect Him
- Paul Sérusier – Le Talisman
- Georges Seurat – completion of Models
- Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec – At the Circus Fernando, Equestrienne
- Henry Scott Tuke – The Bathers
- Giovanni Turini – Statue of Giuseppe Garibaldi
- John Henry Twachtman – Landscape, Branchville
- J. W. Waterhouse – The Lady of Shalott
- Vincent van Gogh
- *
- * Harvest
- * Corn Harvest in Provence
- * Farmhouse in Provence
- * La Mousmé
- * Sunset at Montmajour
- * Cafe Terrace at Night
- * The Night Café
- * The Yellow House
- * Bedroom in Arles
- * The Red Vineyard
- * '
- * '
- * Vincent's Chair and Gauguin's Armchair
- * ''Les Arènes''
Births
- January 1 – Augustus Dunbier, American painter.
- January 17 – Mohamed Nagy, Egyptian painter.
- February 22 – Horace Pippin, self-taught African-American painter.
- March 12 - Eric Kennington, English sculptor and painter.
- March 14 – Marc-Aurèle Fortin, Canadian painter.
- March 19 – Josef Albers, German artist, mathematician and educator.
- April 6 – Hans Richter, German painter, graphic artist, avant-gardist, film-experimenter and producer.
- June – David Dougal Williams, English painter.
- June 12 – Tom Purvis, English poster artist.
- July 10 – Giorgio de Chirico, Greek-Italian painter.
- August 13 – Gleb W. Derujinsky, Russian-American sculptor.
- August 14 – Sydney Carline, English painter, war artist.
- August 30 – Siri Derkert, Swedish artist, sculptor and political campaigner.
- September 4 – Oskar Schlemmer, German sculptor, painter, designer and choreographer.
- November 1 – George Kenner, German artist
- November 7 – Mariano Andreu, Spanish painter, enamelling master, sculptor and stage designer.
- November 11 – Johannes Itten, Swiss colour theorist, painter and designer.
- Stanley Royle, English post-impressionist landscape painter.
Deaths
- January 13 – John William Inchbold, pre-Raphaelite painter
- January 29 – Edward Lear, painter, illustrator and humorous writer
- February 5 – Anton Mauve, painter
- March 15 – Léonard Morel-Ladeuil, goldsmith and sculptor
- May 30 – Louis Buvelot, Swiss-Australian painter
- June 18 – Luigi Mussini, painter
- July 31 – Frank Holl, painter
- August 23 – Philip Henry Gosse, naturalist and illustrator
- August 30 – George O'Brien, engineer and painter
- September 28 – Thomas Gambier Parry, artist and art collector
- October – Frank O'Meara, Irish painter
- November 20 – Nathaniel Currier, illustrator date unknown
- * Alexander Joseph Daiwaille, Dutch portrait painter
- * Nam Gye-u, Korean painter and government official