1878 in art

List of years in Art

Events

*James McNeill Whistler sues critic John Ruskin for libel over his painting "Nocturne in Black and Gold: The Falling Rocket". Whistler wins a farthing in nominal damages, and is bankrupted by his legal costs.

Works

*Mary Cassatt - "Portrait of the Artist"
*Eduard Charlemont - "The Moorish Chief"
*William Merritt Chase - "A Fishmarket in Venice" and "The Mandolin Player"
*Jean-Jacques Henner - "The Magdalene"
*Édouard Manet - "Blonde Woman with Bare Breasts" (Musée d'Orsay, Paris)
*Alfred Sisley - "Snow at Louveciennes" (Musée d'Orsay, Paris)

Births

*4 January - Augustus John, painter (d.1961).
*27 March - Kathleen Scott (Lady Scott), sculptor (d.1947).
*28 March - Abraham Walkowitz, American painter working in the Modernist style (d.1965).
*2 April - Émilie Charmy, French artist (d.1974).
*24 April - Jean Crotti, painter (d.1958).
*9 August - Eileen Gray, Irish furniture designer and architect (d.1976).
*27 November - William Orpen, portrait painter (d.1931).

Full date unknown

*Spencer Gore, painter (d.1914).

Deaths

* Kikuchi Yōsai - Japanese painter most famous for his monochrome portraits of historical figures (b. 1781)
* Francis Grant, painter (b. 1803)
* Charles-François Daubigny, painter (b. 1817)
* Alexandre Antigna, French painter (b. 1817)
* Joseph Bonomi the Younger - English sculptor, artist, Egyptologist and museum curator (b. 1796)