1888 in art

The year 1888 in art involved some significant 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,^[1] Odilon Redon,^[2] Paul Signac, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec and James McNeill Whistler^[3]
• 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^[4]
• 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

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

• 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 on the Beach of Saintes-Maries  [fr] (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)

• 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).

• 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)