Events from the year 1863 in art.

Events

• March – American-born painter James McNeill Whistler settles close to the River Thames in Chelsea, London, where he will live for most of the rest of his life.
• June 12 – The Arts Club is founded by Charles Dickens, Anthony Trollope, Frederic Leighton and others in London's Mayfair as a social meeting place for those involved or interested in the creative arts.
• The École des Beaux-Arts in Paris becomes independent of the Académie des Beaux-Arts.
• Julia Margaret Cameron takes up photography.
• Alexander Gilchrist's Life of William Blake, "Pictor Ignotus" is published in London, edited posthumously by Anne Gilchrist.

Exhibitions

• May 17 – Opening of first exhibition of the Salon des Refusés in Paris (in which Manet exhibits Le déjeuner sur l'herbe and two other paintings; Whistler exhibits Symphony in White, No. 1: The White Girl and Cézanne first exhibits), and coining of the term avant-garde.

Works

• Peter Nicolai Arbo – Horse Herd on the High Mountains
• Thomas Jones Barker – 'The Secret of England's Greatness' (Queen Victoria presenting a Bible in the Audience Chamber at Windsor) (approximate date)
• Albert Bierstadt – The Rocky Mountains, Lander's Peak
• David Gilmour Blythe
  • Libby Prison
  • Man Eating in a Field
• Alexey Bogolyubov – Easter procession in Yaroslavl
• Alexandre Cabanel – The Birth of Venus (first version, Musée d'Orsay, Paris)
• Paul Cézanne – The Judgement of Paris (approximate date)
• Charles Camille Chazal – Institution of the Eucharist
• François-Claudius Compte-Calix – Vieil Ami
• Pierre Puvis de Chavannes – Work (Musée de Picardie, Amiens)
• Joseph Durham – Memorial to the Great Exhibition, London
• Thomas Charles Farrer – A Buckwheat Field on Thomas Cole's Farm
• Jozef Israëls – Fishermen's Children (first version)
• Italian – The Veiled Nun (marble bust, approximate date)
• Vilhelm Kyhn – Efter solnedgang i udkanten af en landsby ("After Sunset on the Outskirts of a Village")
• Édouard Manet
  • Le déjeuner sur l'herbe ("The Luncheon on the Grass" or "The Picnic") (Musée d'Orsay, Paris)
  • Olympia (Musée d'Orsay, Paris)
• Robert Braithwaite Martineau – The Last Chapter
• Jean-Louis-Ernest Meissonier – Napoleon III at the Battle of Solferino
• John Everett Millais – My First Sermon
• Albert Joseph Moore – Wall decorations at Coombe Abbey
• Elisabet Ney – Eilhard Mitscherlich (sculpture)
• Vincent Pilz – Pegasus (pair of bronzes) (approximate date)
• Dante Gabriel Rossetti – Joan of Arc Kissing the Sword of Deliverance
• Eugene von Guerard – North-east View from the Northern Top of Mount Kosciusko
• Frederick Walker – The Lost Path
• James McNeill Whistler – Grey and Silver: Old Battersea Reach

Births

• January 11 – Mary Tannahill, American painter and artist in fabrics (died 1951)
• January 29 – Suzette Holten, née Skovgaard, Danish painter and ceramist (died 1937)
• April 3 – Henry van de Velde, Belgian painter, architect and designer, co-founder of the Art Nouveau movement (died 1957)
• May 17 – C. R. Ashbee, English designer (died 1942)
• June 12 – Bertram Mackennal, Australian sculptor (died 1931)
• June 16 – Arturo Michelena, Venezuelan painter (died 1898)
• June 21 – Anne Marie Carl-Nielsen, née Brodersen, Danish sculptor (died 1945)
• June 27 – Henri Beau, Canadian Impressionist painter (died 1949)
• August 30 (August 18 Old Style) – Sergey Prokudin-Gorsky, Russian color photographer (died 1944)
• September 6 – Jessie Willcox Smith, American illustrator (died 1935)
• October 24 – Bertha Jaques, American etcher (died 1941)
• November 11 – Paul Signac, French neo-Impressionist painter (died 1935)
• December 5 – George Pirie, Scottish painter (died 1946)
• December 12 – Edvard Munch, Norwegian painter (died 1944)

Deaths

• January 6 – Harriet Gouldsmith, English landscape painter and etcher (born 1787)
• January 17 – Horace Vernet, French painter of battles, portraits, and Orientalist Arab subjects (born 1789)
• February 6 – Karl Ludwig Frommel, German landscape painter and engraver (born 1789)
• February 16 – Alvan Fisher, American pioneer in landscape painting and genre works (born 1792)
• February 20 – John Cart Burgess, English watercolour painter of flowers and landscapes (born 1798)
• April 4 – Ludwig Emil Grimm, German painter and engraver (born 1790)
• June 5 – Marie Ellenrieder, German painter (born 1791)
• July 7 – William Mulready, Irish genre painter of rural scenes (born 1786)
• July 12 – Étienne-Jean Delécluze, French painter and critic (born 1781)
• August 13 – Eugène Delacroix, French Romantic painter (born 1798)
• September 19 – Joseph Nigg – Austrian painter, with painting on porcelain a specialty (born 1782)
• December 4 – James Duffield Harding, English landscape painter (born 1798)
• December 10 – Charles C. Ingham, Irish portrait painter and founder of the New York National Academy of Design (born 1797)
• December 27 – Maria Martin, American watercolor painter (born 1796)
• date unknown
  • Tommaso Benedetti, Austrian painter (born 1797)
  • Per Krafft the Younger, Swedish portrait and historical painter (born 1777)
  • Nukina Kaioku, Japanese painter and calligrapher (born 1778)
  • Johannes Baptista van Acker, Flemish portrait miniature painter (born 1794)