1789 in art

Events from the year 1789 in art.

Events

 * May 4 – The Boydell Shakespeare Gallery, designed for John Boydell by George Dance the Younger, is opened in London.
 * James Stuart and Nicholas Revett publish "The Antiquities of Athens" with William Pars's 1765 painting "The Parthenon when it contained a mosque".
 * Sir Joshua Reynolds loses the sight of his left eye, which forces him into retirement from painting.

Works

 * John Singleton Copley – The Defeat of the Floating Batteries at Gibraltar, September 1782
 * Jacques-Louis David – The Lictors Bring to Brutus the Bodies of His Sons
 * Francisco Goya – Blind Man's Bluff (cartoon for tapestry)
 * Thomas Lawrence
 * Portrait of Queen Charlotte
 * William Linley
 * Joshua Reynolds
 * Cupid and Psyche
 * Puck (Boydell Shakespeare Gallery)
 * John Trumbull – The Sortie Made by the Garrison of Gibraltar, 1789

Births

 * March 7 – Michel Martin Drolling, French painter of history and portraits (died 1851)
 * April 29 – Karl Ludwig Frommel, German landscape painter and engraver (died 1863)
 * June 30 – Horace Vernet, French painter of battles, portraits, and Orientalist Arab subjects (died 1863)
 * July 4 – Johann Friedrich Overbeck, German painter (died 1869)
 * July 19 – John Martin, English painter and engraver (died 1854)
 * July 31 – Jean-Pierre Montagny, French medallist and coiner (died 1862)
 * September 7 – Friedrich Wilhelm Schadow, German Romantic painter (died 1862)
 * November 12 – William Turner of Oxford, English topographical watercolourist (died 1862)
 * November 20 – John Partridge, British artist and portrait painter (died 1872)
 * date unknown
 * Jakob Alt, German landscape painter (died 1872)
 * Jules Robert Auguste, French painter Impressionist movement (died 1850)
 * Giovanni Battista Cassevari, Italian miniature portrait painter, (died 1876)
 * Auguste Hüssener, German engraver and miniature painter (died 1877)
 * Elisabeth Charlotta Karsten, Swedish and Russian painter (died 1856)
 * Hans Michelsen, Norwegian sculptor (died 1859)

Deaths

 * January 4 – Johan Jacob Bruun, Danish gouache painter best known for his topographic prospects (born 1715)
 * May 9 – Giuseppe Bonito, Neapolitan painter of the Rococo period (born 1707)
 * May 15 – Jean-Baptiste Marie Pierre, French painter, drawer and administrator (born 1714)
 * June 12 – Jean-Étienne Liotard, Swiss-French painter (born 1702)
 * August 22 – Johann Heinrich Tischbein, member of the Tischbein family of German painters (born 1722)
 * December 3 – Claude Joseph Vernet, French painter (born 1714)
 * date unknown
 * Kim Eung-hwan, Korean painter of the late Joseon period (born 1742)
 * Jeremiah Meyer, English miniaturist (born 1735)
 * Nikola Nešković, Serbian religious painter of icons, frescos, and portraits (born 1740)
 * Thomas Parkinson, British portrait painter (born 1744)
 * Orazio Solimena, Italian painter (born 1690)