1885 in art

List of years in art (table)
... 1875 1876 1877 1878 1879 1880 1881 ... 1882 1883 1884 1885 1886 1887 1888 ... 1889 1890 1891 1892 1893 1894 1895 ...
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Events

• July 13 – New building for the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, designed by Pierre Cuypers, opens.
• August – First public display of works by Vincent van Gogh, in the windows of the art dealer Leurs at The Hague.
• "Glasgow Boys" first exhibit collectively, at the Glasgow Institute of the Fine Arts.
• Aberdeen Art Gallery opens in Scotland.
• Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery opens in England.
• The Guildhall Art Gallery opens in the City of London.
• The E. B. Crocker Art Gallery is presented to the people of Sacramento, California.

Awards

• John Everett Millais is granted a baronetcy in the United Kingdom, the first artist to be honoured with a hereditary title.

Works

Thomas Eakins – The Swimming Hole

• Michael Ancher – Vil han klare pynten ("Will he Round the Point?")
• William-Adolphe Bouguereau – The Young Shepherdess
• Frank Bramley
  • Everyone His Own Tale
  • Primrose Day
• Ernest Christophe – La Fatalité (sculpture)
• Albert Dubois-Pillet (some dates approximate)
  • Ankerplaats
  • Bouquet of Roses in a Vase
  • Landscape with a Lock
  • Still Life with Fish
  • View of Paris
  • Winter Landscape
• Thomas Eakins – The Swimming Hole
• Albert Edelfelt – Portrait of Louis Pasteur
• Henri Fantin-Latour – Around the Piano
• Stanhope Forbes – A Fish Sale on a Cornish Beach
• Jean-Léon Gérôme – The great bath of Brousse
• Ellen Day Hale – Self Portrait (Museum of Fine Arts, Boston)
• Winslow Homer – The Fog Warning (Museum of Fine Arts, Boston)
• Juan Luna
  • Chula series
  • Odalisque
• Jan Matejko – Bohdan Khmelnytsky with Tuhaj Bej near Lviv
• John Everett Millais – The Ruling Passion
• Charles William Mitchell – Hypatia
• Claude Monet – The Cliffs at Etretat
• Henri-Paul Motte – The Fiancee of Belus
• Walter Osborne – Feeding the Chickens
• Pierre-Auguste Renoir – Girl Braiding Her Hair (Suzanne Valadon)
• Ilya Repin – Ivan the Terrible And His Son Ivan, 16 November 1581 (Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow)
• Therese Schwartze – Three girls from the Amsterdam Orphanage
• Marie Spartali Stillman – Love's Messenger
• Marianne Stokes – Homeless
• James Tissot
  • The Bridesmaid
  • The Shop Girl
• William Greene Turner – Oliver Perry Monument (bronze, Newport, Rhode Island)
• Vincent van Gogh
  • The Potato Eaters (April)
  • Cottages series
  • Old Church Tower at Nuenen series (continued)
  • Peasant Character Studies
  • Still life paintings (continuing)
  • Two Paintings of Amsterdam (October)
• Hubert von Herkomer – Hard Times
• John William Waterhouse – Saint Eulalia
• George Frederic Watts
  • Love and Life
  • Mammon
• W. L. Wyllie
  • A Dying Giant
  • Storm and Sunshine: A Battle with the Elements

Births

• January 21 – Duncan Grant, Scottish painter (died 1978)
• February 18 – Henri Laurens, French sculptor (died 1954)
• February 24 – Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz ('Witkacy'), Polish painter, playwright and novelist (suicide 1939)
• March 3 – Cecil Thomas, English bronze sculptor and medallist (died 1976)
• March 31 – Pascin, Bulgarian-born painter and draftsman (suicide 1930)
• April 8 – Norman Clyde, American mountaineer, nature photographer and naturalist (died 1972)
• April 12 – Robert Delaunay, French painter (died 1941)
• May 12 – Mario Sironi, Italian painter (died 1961)
• June 27 – Arthur Lismer, English-born Canadian painter, member of the Group of Seven (died 1969)
• July 5 – André Lhote, French painter and sculptor (died 1962)
• July 11 – Roger de La Fresnaye, French cubist painter (died 1925)
• August 15 – Nancy Cox-McCormack, American portrait sculptor (died 1967)
• August 26 – Gwen Raverat, née Darwin, English wood engraver (died 1957)
• August 30 – Paul Gösch, German artist and architect (died 1940)
• September 12 – Heinrich Hoffmann, German propaganda photographer (died 1957)
• October 15 – Jóhannes Sveinsson Kjarval, Icelandic painter (died 1972)
• October 21 – Jan Altink, Dutch painter (died 1971)
• November 14 – Sonia Delaunay, Ukrainian-French artist (died 1979)
• date unknown
  • Leonardo Dudreville, Italian painter (died 1975)
  • Branko Radulović, Serbian painter (died 1916)

Deaths

• January 20 – Joseph Niklaus Bütler, Swiss painter (born 1822)
• April 18 – Rudolf Eitelberger, art historian (born 1817)
• April 29 – Ernst Joachim Förster, painter (born 1800)
• June 13 – Carl Arnold Gonzenbach, Swiss painter (born 1806)
• July 23 - Pierre Alexandre Schoenewerk, French sculptor (born 1820)
• August 30 – Thomas Thornycroft, sculptor (born 1815)
• September 6 – Narcís Monturiol, Spanish artist and engineer (born 1819)
• September 23 – Carl Spitzweg, painter (born 1808)
• October 9 – John Bowes, art collector (born 1811)
• December 5 – Wilhelm Ripe, painter (born 1818)
• December 11 – James Fahey, painter (born 1804)
• date unknown – Girolamo Masini, sculptor (born 1840)