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 ("Trixie") Godwin (née Beatrix Birnie Philip), 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 (London) describing bohemian life in 1870s Paris among the Impressionist painters

Exhibitions

 * International Exhibition of Science, Art and Industry, in Glasgow, Scotland

Works



 * Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema – The Roses of Heliogabalus
 * Reinhold Begas – Centaur and Nymph (bronze)
 * Émile Bernard
 * Le Pardon de Pont-Aven ("Breton Women in the Meadow")
 * Brothel Scene, for Vincent (watercolor)
 * Self-portrait with portrait of Paul Gauguin
 * The Yellow Tree
 * Joseph Boehm
 * Equestrian statue of the Duke of Wellington (Hyde Park Corner, London)
 * Queen Victoria Statue (College Green, Bristol)
 * 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 (J. Paul Getty Museum, Malibu)
 * Akseli Gallen-Kallela – Démasquée
 * Paul Gauguin
 * Madame Ginoux (drawing)
 * The Painter of Sunflowers (December)
 * Self-Portrait with Portrait of Émile Bernard (Les misérables)
 * Vision After the Sermon
 * Alfred Gilbert – Statue of Queen Victoria (Winchester)
 * Antonio Gisbert Pérez - Execution of Torrijos and his Companions on the Beach at Málaga
 * Peder Severin Krøyer – Hip, Hip, Hurrah!
 * Frederic Leighton – Captive Andromache (approximate date)
 * William Logsdail – St Martin-in-the-Fields
 * Cesare Maccari – Cicero Denounces Catiline (fresco in Palazzo Madama, Rome)
 * 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 (Les Poseuses) (Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia)
 * Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec – At the Circus Fernando, Equestrienne
 * Henry Scott Tuke – The Bathers
 * Giovanni Turini – Statue of Giuseppe Garibaldi (bronze, Washington Square Park, New York City)
 * John Henry Twachtman – Landscape, Branchville
 * J. W. Waterhouse – The Lady of Shalott
 * Vincent van Gogh
 * Boats at Saintes-Maries-De-La-Mer (June)
 * Harvest (at La Crau, with Montmajour in the Background) (June)
 * Corn Harvest in Provence
 * Farmhouse in Provence
 * La Mousmé
 * Sunset at Montmajour (August)
 * Cafe Terrace at Night (Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo) (September)
 * The Night Café (September)
 * The Yellow House (September)
 * Bedroom in Arles (first version; October)
 * The Red Vineyard (November)
 * The Sower (Sower with the Setting Sun) (June)
 * Tarascon Diligence (October 12)
 * Vincent's Chair and Gauguin's Armchair (November)
 * Les Arènes (November or December)

Births

 * January 1 – Augustus Dunbier, American painter (died 1977).
 * January 17 – Mohamed Nagy, Egyptian painter (died 1956).
 * February 22 – Horace Pippin, self-taught African-American painter (died 1946).
 * March 12 - Eric Kennington, English sculptor and painter (died 1960).
 * March 14 – Marc-Aurèle Fortin, Canadian painter (died 1970).
 * March 19 – Josef Albers, German artist, mathematician and educator (died 1976).
 * April 6 – Hans Richter, German painter, graphic artist, avant-gardist, film-experimenter and producer (died 1976).
 * June – David Dougal Williams, English painter (died 1944).
 * June 12 – Tom Purvis, English poster artist (died 1959).
 * July 10 – Giorgio de Chirico, Greek-Italian painter (died 1978).
 * August 13 – Gleb W. Derujinsky, Russian-American sculptor (died 1975).
 * August 14 – Sydney Carline, English painter, war artist (died 1929).
 * August 30 – Siri Derkert, Swedish artist, sculptor and political campaigner (died 1973).
 * September 4 – Oskar Schlemmer, German sculptor, painter, designer and choreographer (died 1943).
 * November 1 – George Kenner, German artist (died 1971)
 * November 7 – Mariano Andreu, Spanish painter, enamelling master, sculptor and stage designer (died 1976).
 * November 11 – Johannes Itten, Swiss colour theorist, painter and designer (died 1967).
 * Stanley Royle, English post-impressionist landscape painter (died 1961).

Deaths

 * January 13 – John William Inchbold, pre-Raphaelite painter (born 1830)
 * January 29 – Edward Lear, painter, illustrator and humorous writer (born 1812)
 * February 5 – Anton Mauve, painter (born 1838)
 * March 15 – Léonard Morel-Ladeuil, goldsmith and sculptor (born 1820)
 * May 30 – Louis Buvelot, Swiss-Australian painter (born 1814)
 * June 18 – Luigi Mussini, painter (born 1813)
 * July 31 – Frank Holl, painter (born 1845)
 * August 23 – Philip Henry Gosse, naturalist and illustrator (born 1810)
 * August 30 – George O'Brien, engineer and painter (born 1821)
 * September 28 – Thomas Gambier Parry, artist and art collector (born 1816)
 * October – Frank O'Meara, Irish painter (born 1853)
 * November 20 – Nathaniel Currier, illustrator (born 1813)
 * date unknown
 * Alexander Joseph Daiwaille, Dutch portrait painter (born 1818)
 * Nam Gye-u, Korean painter and government official (born 1811)