Events from the year 1789 in art.

Events

• May 4 – The Boydell Shakespeare Gallery, designed for John Boydell by George Dance the Younger, is opened in London.
• James Stuart and Nicholas Revett publish "The Antiquities of Athens" with William Pars's 1765 painting "The Parthenon when it contained a mosque".
• Sir Joshua Reynolds loses the sight of his left eye, which forces him into retirement from painting.

Works

• John Singleton Copley – The Defeat of the Floating Batteries at Gibraltar, September 1782
• Jacques-Louis David – The Lictors Bring to Brutus the Bodies of His Sons
• Francisco Goya – Blind Man's Bluff (cartoon for tapestry)
• Thomas Lawrence
  • Portrait of Queen Charlotte
  • William Linley
• Joshua Reynolds
  • Cupid and Psyche
  • Puck (Boydell Shakespeare Gallery)
• John Trumbull – The Sortie Made by the Garrison of Gibraltar, 1789

Births

• March 7 – Michel Martin Drolling, French painter of history and portraits (died 1851)
• April 29 – Karl Ludwig Frommel, German landscape painter and engraver (died 1863)
• June 30 – Horace Vernet, French painter of battles, portraits, and Orientalist Arab subjects (died 1863)
• July 4 – Johann Friedrich Overbeck, German painter (died 1869)
• July 19 – John Martin, English painter and engraver (died 1854)
• July 31 – Jean-Pierre Montagny, French medallist and coiner (died 1862)
• September 7 – Friedrich Wilhelm Schadow, German Romantic painter (died 1862)
• November 12 – William Turner of Oxford, English topographical watercolourist (died 1862)
• November 20 – John Partridge, British artist and portrait painter (died 1872)
• date unknown
  • Jakob Alt, German landscape painter (died 1872)
  • Jules Robert Auguste, French painter Impressionist movement (died 1850)
  • Giovanni Battista Cassevari, Italian miniature portrait painter, (died 1876)
  • Auguste Hüssener, German engraver and miniature painter (died 1877)
  • Elisabeth Charlotta Karsten, Swedish and Russian painter (died 1856)
  • Hans Michelsen, Norwegian sculptor (died 1859)

Deaths

• January 4 – Johan Jacob Bruun, Danish gouache painter best known for his topographic prospects (born 1715)
• May 9 – Giuseppe Bonito, Neapolitan painter of the Rococo period (born 1707)
• May 15 – Jean-Baptiste Marie Pierre, French painter, drawer and administrator (born 1714)
• June 12 – Jean-Étienne Liotard, Swiss-French painter (born 1702)
• August 22 – Johann Heinrich Tischbein, member of the Tischbein family of German painters (born 1722)
• December 3 – Claude Joseph Vernet, French painter (born 1714)
• date unknown
  • Kim Eung-hwan, Korean painter of the late Joseon period (born 1742)
  • Jeremiah Meyer, English miniaturist (born 1735)
  • Nikola Nešković, Serbian religious painter of icons, frescos, and portraits (born 1740)
  • Thomas Parkinson, British portrait painter (born 1744)
  • Orazio Solimena, Italian painter (born 1690)