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.
John Everett Millais is granted a baronetcy in the United Kingdom, the first artist to be honoured with a hereditary title.
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
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 4 – Leonardo Dudreville, Italian painter (died 1975)
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)
July 15 – Josef Frank, Austrian-born architect and designer (died 1967)
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 – Branko Radulović, Serbian painter (died 1916)
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)
1885 in art Wikipedia (Text) CC BY-SA
