Events from the year 1884 in art.

Events

• February 2 – First annual exhibition of Les XX opens at the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels.^[1] Artists invited to show in addition to members of the group include Auguste Rodin, James McNeill Whistler and Max Liebermann.^[2]
• March – Theo van Gogh starts buying and selling Impressionist works, beginning with a painting by Pissarro.^[3]
• April – Camille Pissarro moves to Éragny-sur-Epte.
• May 15–July 15 – Groupe des Artistes Indépendants stages the first officially sanctioned open exhibition of contemporary art in Paris.
• July 29 – Société des Artistes Indépendants established in Paris under the leadership of Albert Dubois-Pillet.
• August 30 – Austrian painter Marianne Preindlsberger marries English painter Adrian Scott Stokes.

Works

• Michael Ancher – Portrait of my wife, the painter Anna Ancher
• Henry Baerer – Ludwig van Beethoven (bronze sculpture, version for Central Park, New York City)
• Marie Bashkirtseff – The Meeting
• Anna Bilińska-Bohdanowicz – A Negress
• Jules Breton – The Song of the Lark
• Gustave Caillebotte
  • Houses at Trouville
  • Man at his bath
  • Man wearing a blouse
  • The Yellow Fields at Gennevilliers
• Gustaf Cederström – Funeral procession of King Charles XII
• Albert Edelfelt – Boys Playing on the Shore
• Daniel Chester French – John Harvard (bronze sculpture)
• Alfred Gilbert – sculptures
  • Icarus
  • Study of a Head
• Félix Resurrección Hidalgo – Las Virgenes Cristianas Expuestas al Populacho
• Henry Holiday – Dante and Beatrice
• John Lavery – On the Bridge at Grez
• Frederic Leighton – Cymon and Iphigenia
• John Seymour Lucas – After Culloden: Rebel Hunting
• Juan Luna – Spoliarium
• Jean-Louis-Ernest Meissonier – The Siege of Paris in 1870
• John Everett Millais – Message from the Sea
• Albert Joseph Moore – Reading Aloud
• Edvard Munch – Morning
• John O'Connor – From Pentonville Road looking west, evening
• Anna Petersen – Breton Girl Looking After Plants in the Hothouse
• Medardo Rosso – Flesh of Others (wax sculpture)
• John Singer Sargent
  • Auguste Rodin
  • Portrait of Madame X
• Giovanni Segantini - The Bad Mothers
• Georges-Pierre Seurat – Bathers at Asnières
• Alfred Sisley – The Port of Moret-sur-Loing
• Marie Spartali Stillman – Madonna Pietra degli Scrovigni
• Marianne Stokes – Reflection
• Abbott Handerson Thayer – The Sisters
• Félix Vallotton - Study of Buttocks^[4] (c.)
• Vasily Vereshchagin – Blowing from Guns in British India
• Jan Voerman – Days of Mourning

Births

• February 5 – Vlastislav Hofman, Czech painter and architect (died 1964)
• February 12
  • Marie Vassilieff, Russian-French painter (died 1957)^[5]
  • Max Beckmann, German painter (died 1950)
• May 11 – Stanley Anderson, English engraver (died 1966)
• June 19 – Georges Ribemont-Dessaignes, French writer and artist (died 1974)
• June 25 – Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler, German-born French art dealer (died 1979)
• June 30 – Jovan Bijelić, Serbian painter (died 1964).
• July 7 – André Dunoyer de Segonzac, French painter and graphic artist (died 1974)
• July 12 – Amedeo Modigliani, Italian-born painter and sculptor (died 1920)
• September 1 – Hilda Rix Nicholas, Australian painter (died 1961)
• October 6 – MacDonald Gill, English designer (died 1947)
• December 12 (November 30 O.S.) – Zinaida Serebriakova, Russian-born painter (died 1967)
• December 15 – Eugeniusz Zak, Belarusian-born painter (died 1926)
• December 17 – Waldo Peirce, American painter (died 1970)

Deaths

• January 9 – Vito D'Ancona, Italian painter (born 1825)
• January 28 – Alexander Louis Leloir, French painter (born 1843)
• June 13 – Anton Zwengauer, German painter (born 1810)
• June 19 – Adrian Ludwig Richter, German painter and etcher (born 1803)
• October 1 – Theodor Martens, German painter (born 1822)
• October 3 – Hans Makart, Austrian painter and designer (born 1840)
• October 22 – Treffle Berthlaume, Québécois sculptor (born 1803)
• October 31 – Marie Bashkirtseff, Ukrainian-French painter, of TB (born 1858)
• date unknown
  • Stanisław Chlebowski, Polish painter, especially of oriental themes (born 1835)
  • Lina von Perbandt, German landscape painter (born 1836)
  • Carlo Randanini, Italian painter (year of birth unknown)