1897 in art

Events

• February 18 – Conclusion of the Benin Expedition of 1897, leading to the Benin Bronzes being carried off to London.
• April 3 – Vienna Secession founded by artists including Gustav Klimt, Koloman Moser, Josef Hoffmann, Joseph Maria Olbrich, Max Kurzweil. Secession hall designed by Olbrich.
• May 1 – Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek art museum opened in Copenhagen.
• May 27 – A Separate Exhibition of Painting and Sculpture is staged at Sukiennice Museum in Main Square, Kraków.
• August 4 – The "Lady of Elche" Iberian sculpture is found at L'Alcúdia near Elche in Spain.
• September – Edvard Munch stages a major retrospective in Christiania.
• October 27 – First meeting of the Society of Polish Artists "Sztuka" in Kraków.
• At Giverny, Claude Monet begins painting his Water Lilies series, which will continue until the end of his life.
• Elbridge Ayer Burbank begins painting portraits of Native Americans in the United States from life.
• Women photographers Zaida Ben-Yusuf and Gertrude Käsebier open portrait studios in New York City.

Publications

• Bernard Berenson publishes Central Italian Painters of the Renaissance.

Works

• Edwin Austin Abbey – The Play Scene in Hamlet
• Philip Burne-Jones – The Vampire
• Georges Clairin – Sarah Bernhardt as the Queen in 'Ruy Blas
• Herbert James Draper – Pot Pourri
• Roberto Ferruzzi – Madonnina
• Akseli Gallen-Kallela – Lemminkäinen's Mother
• Paul Gauguin – Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going?
• Ogata Gekkō – Ryu sho ten
• J. W. Godward – Dolce far Niente
• Jean-Jacques Henner – Portrait of Mlle Fouquier
• Jacek Malczewski – Vicious Circle
• Claude Monet
• * '
• * ''
• * The Seine at Giverny
• Edvard Munch – The Kiss
• Camille Pissarro
• * Boulevard Montmartre
• * Boulevard Montmartre in Spring
• * Boulevard Montmartre on a Winter Morning
• Maurice Prendergast – Summer Visitors
• Henri Rousseau – The Sleeping Gypsy
• John Singer Sargent – Mr. and Mrs. I. N. Phelps Stokes
• Rudolf Siemering – Washington Monument, Philadelphia
• Henryk Siemiradzki – A Christian Dirce
• Douglas Tilden – Admission Day Monument, San Francisco
• Vasily Vereshchagin – Napoleon near Borodino
• Arthur Wardle – The Totteridge XI
• Painters under the direction of Jan Styka – ''Transylvania Panorama''

Births

• January 9 – Tyra Lundgren, Swedish painter, ceramist, glass and textile designer and writer on art
• January 17 – Charles Ragland Bunnell, American painter
• January 21 – René Iché, French sculptor
• March 16 – Antonio Donghi, Italian painter
• May 2 – Adolf Hyła, Polish painter and art teacher
• May 21 – Nikola Avramov, Bulgarian painter
• June 3 – Georg Mayer-Marton, Hungarian-born graphic artist
• June 22 – Albert Renger-Patzsch, German photographer
• June 26 – Victor Servranckx, Belgian painter
• August 19 – Roman Vishniac, Russian American photographer
• September 23 – Paul Delvaux, Belgian painter
• October 27 – Lena Gurr, American painter and lithographer
• November 5 – Hilda Vīka, Latvian painter

Deaths

• February 7 – Charles Edward Boutibonne, French Classicist painter
• February 9 – George Price Boyce, English Pre-Raphaelite watercolour landscape painter
• March 21 – Ādams Alksnis, Latvian painter
• May 20 – Jacques Émile Édouard Brandon, French artist
• June 7 – Victor Mottez, French fresco and portrait painter
• September 8 – James Milo Griffith, Welsh sculptor
• September 20 – Louis Pierre Mouillard, French artist and aviation pioneer
• October 5 – Sir John Gilbert, English painter
• October 8 – Alexei Savrasov, Russian landscape painter
• November 18 – Henry Doulton, English potter
• November 29 – Félix Pissarro, French-born painter, TB
• December 30 – Edward La Trobe Bateman, English-born Pre-Raphaelite watercolour painter, book illuminator, draughtsman and garden designer date unknown – Jang Seung-eop, Korean painter