1897 in art

Events

• February 18 – Conclusion of the Benin Expedition of 1897, leading to the Benin Bronzes being carried off to London.
• April 3 – Vienna Secession founded by artists including Gustav Klimt, Koloman Moser, Josef Hoffmann, Joseph Maria Olbrich, Max Kurzweil. Secession hall designed by Olbrich.
• May 1 – Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek art museum opened in Copenhagen.
• May 27 – A Separate Exhibition of Painting and Sculpture is staged at Sukiennice Museum in Main Square, Kraków.
• August 4 – The "Lady of Elche" Iberian sculpture is found at L'Alcúdia near Elche in Spain.
• September – Edvard Munch stages a major retrospective in Christiania.
• October 27 – First meeting of the Society of Polish Artists "Sztuka" in Kraków.
• At Giverny, Claude Monet begins painting his Water Lilies series, which will continue until the end of his life.
• Elbridge Ayer Burbank begins painting portraits of Native Americans in the United States from life.
• Women photographers Zaida Ben-Yusuf and Gertrude Käsebier open portrait studios in New York City.
• A Book of Fifty Drawings by Aubrey Beardsley is published.
• Bernard Berenson publishes Central Italian Painters of the Renaissance.

  Works

• Edwin Austin Abbey – :File:The Play Scene in Hamlet.jpg|The Play Scene in Hamlet
• Philip Burne-Jones – The Vampire
• Georges Clairin – :File:Georges Jules Victor Clairin, Sarah Bernhardt as the Queen in 'Ruy Blas'. 1897.jpg|Sarah Bernhardt as the Queen in 'Ruy Blas
• Herbert James Draper – :File:Draper-Pot Pourri.jpg|Pot Pourri
• Roberto Ferruzzi – Madonnina
• Akseli Gallen-Kallela – Lemminkäinen's Mother
• Paul Gauguin – Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going?
• Ogata Gekkō – Ryu sho ten
• J. W. Godward – Dolce far Niente
• Jean-Jacques Henner – Portrait of Mlle Fouquier
• Jacek Malczewski – :File:Bledne kolo.jpg|Vicious Circle
• Claude Monet
• * '
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• * :File:The Seine at Giverny.JPG|The Seine at Giverny
• Edvard Munch – The Kiss
• Camille Pissarro
• * :File:Camille Pissarro, Boulevard Montmartre.jpg|Boulevard Montmartre
• * :File:Camille Pissarro 008.jpg|Boulevard Montmartre in Spring
• * :File:The Boulevard Montmartre on a Winter Morning.JPG|Boulevard Montmartre on a Winter Morning
• Maurice Prendergast – Summer Visitors
• Henri Rousseau – The Sleeping Gypsy
• John Singer Sargent – Mr. and Mrs. I. N. Phelps Stokes
• Henryk Siemiradzki – :File:Dirce.jpg|A Christian Dirce
• Douglas Tilden – Admission Day Monument, San Francisco
• Vasily Vereshchagin – :File:Vereshagin.Napoleon near Borodino.jpg|Napoleon near Borodino
• Arthur Wardle – The Totteridge XI
• Painters under the direction of Jan Styka – Transylvania Panorama''

  Births

• January 17 – Charles Ragland Bunnell, American painter
• January 21 – René Iché, French sculptor
• March 16 – Antonio Donghi, Italian painter
• June 22 – Albert Renger-Patzsch, German photographer
• June 26 – Victor Servranckx, Belgian painter
• August 19 – Roman Vishniac, Russian American photographer
• September 23 – Paul Delvaux, Belgian painter.
• October 27 – Lena Gurr, American painter and lithographer

  Deaths

• February 7 – Charles Edward Boutibonne, French Classicist painter
• February 9 – George Price Boyce, English Pre-Raphaelite watercolour landscape painter
• March 21 – Ādams Alksnis, Latvian painter
• May 20 – Jacques Émile Édouard Brandon, French artist
• June 7 – Victor Mottez, French fresco and portrait painter
• October 5 – Sir John Gilbert, English painter
• November 18 – Henry Doulton, English potter
• date unknown – Jang Seung-eop, Korean painter