1902 in art

Events

• June – The group Boadicea and Her Daughters by Thomas Thornycroft is cast in bronze and erected on the Victoria Embankment in London.
• July – Cecil and Wilfred Phillips open the Leicester Galleries in Leicester Square, London, for exhibitions of modern British and French art.
• September – Paul Cézanne's final studio, at Les Lauves, commanding a view of Montagne Sainte-Victoire, is completed.
• Early October – Beatrix Potter's first children's book The Tale of Peter Rabbit, with her own colour illustrations, is first published in a trade edition by Frederick Warne & Co in London. By the end of the year it sells 28,000 copies.
• Georges Braque begins his studies at the Academie Humbert, where he meets Marie Laurencin and Francis Picabia.
• Charles Robert Ashbee moves his Guild and School of Handicraft to Chipping Campden in the English Cotswolds.
• The studio La Ruche is established in the 15th arrondissement of Paris by the sculptor Alfred Boucher to provide accommodation for impoverished young artists.
• Claude Monet begins his Water Lilies series of paintings in his garden at Giverny.
• Edvard Munch exhibits extensively at this year's Berlin Secession, including the first complete showing of his Frieze of Life series. In October he accidentally shoots himself in the hand in the course of breaking up with Tulla Larsen.
• Christopher Whall completes his first major group of stained glass windows in Gloucester Cathedral, England.

Works

• Helen Allingham – View of Blackdown
• Frank Weston Benson – Eleanor Holding a Shell
• Pierre Bonnard – The Terrasse Children with Black Dog
• Thomas Eakins – Self-portrait
• J. W. Godward
• * Ionian Dancing Girl
• * An Italian Girl's Head
• Vilhelm Hammershøi – Five Portraits
• Gwen John – Self-Portrait
• Gustav Klimt
• * Beethoven Frieze
• * Beech Grove I
• * Portrait of Emilie Flöge
• *Insel im Attersee
• Max Liebermann – Terrace at the Restaurant Jacob in Niestedten on the Elbe
• Margaret MacDonald
• * Oh ye, all ye that walk in Willowood
• * The Red Rose and the White Rose
• Jacek Malczewski – Angel of Death
• Henri Matisse – Notre-Dame, une fin d'après-midi
• William Orpen –
• Walter Osborne – Tea in the Garden
• Pablo Picasso – Femme aux Bras Croisés
• Edward Poynter – The Vision of Endymion
• Paul Ranson – Apple Tree with Red Berries
• William Blake Richmond – Hera in the House of Hephaistos
• Auguste Rodin – The Thinker
• John Singer Sargent – Lord Ribblesdale
• Rudolf Siemering – Bison
• Max Slevogt – The Singer Francisco D'Andrade as Don Giovanni in Mozart's Opera
• Alfred Stieglitz – photographs
• * The Hand of Man
• * Spring Showers, The Coach
• Henry Scott Tuke – Ruby, Gold and Malachite
• John William Waterhouse – The Missal
• George Frederic Watts – Physical Energy
• Stanisław Wyspiański – ''Self-portrait''

Births

January to June

• January 15 – Paul Kelpe, German-born American painter
• January 19 – David Olère, Polish-born Jewish French painter
• January 30 – Nikolaus Pevsner, German-born British art historian
• February 3 – Dolly Rudeman, Dutch graphic designer
• February 20 – Ansel Adams, American photographer
• February 24 – Nedeljko Gvozdenović, Serbian painter
• February 26 – Jean Bruller, French writer and illustrator
• February 27 – Ľudovít Fulla, Slovak painter, graphic artist, illustrator, stage designer and art teacher
• March 3 – Isabel Bishop, American painter and graphic artist
• March 16 – Lucie Rie, Austrian-born British studio potter
• April 2 – Jan Tschichold, German typographer, book designer, teacher and writer
• April 26 – Isaac Soyer, Russian-born American painter,
• May 24 – Sylvia Daoust, Canadian sculptor
• June 24 – Thea Tewi, German-born American sculptor and lingerie designer

July to December

• August 5 – I. Rice Pereira, American abstract painter and writer
• August 18 – Adamson-Eric, Estonian artist
• September 2 – Peter Pitseolak, Inuit photographer, artist and historian
• September 10 – Lee Gatch, American painter and muralist
• September 18 – Peter S. Pezzati, American portrait painter
• September 28 – Kenzo Okada, Japanese-born painter
• October 10 – Dick Ket, Dutch magic realist painter
• October 20 – Enid Marx, English textile designer
• November 4 – Pierre Edouard Leopold Verger, French photographer and ethnographer
• November 11 – Ernő Goldfinger, Hungarian-born architect and furniture designer
• November 21 – Marko Čelebonović, Serbian painter
• December 8 – Wifredo Lam, Cuban artist

Undated

• Situ Qiao, Chinese painter

Deaths

• January 6 – Lars Hertervig, Norwegian painter
• February 7 – Thomas Sidney Cooper, English painter of farm scenes
• February 18 – Albert Bierstadt, German American landscape painter
• March 21 – Vincenzo Cabianca, Italian painter
• April 12 – Ernest Gambart, Belgian-born English art dealer
• April 15 – Jules Dalou, French sculptor
• May 20 – Matthew Ridley Corbet, English neoclassical painter
• June 11 – Otto Eckmann, German painter and graphic artist
• July 28 – Jehan Georges Vibert, French academic painter
• August 8
• * James Tissot, French-born painter
• * John Henry Twachtman, American impressionist landscape painter and member of the Cos Cob Art Colony
• October 16 – Jeronimo Suñol, Spanish sculptor
• December 7 – Thomas Nast, German American cartoonist date unknown – Fabio Borbottoni, Italian painter of vedute