1903 in art

Events

• June 3 – Laura Johnson marries Harold Knight.
• Isadora Duncan develops free dance, a dance technique influenced by the ancient Greeks and the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche.
• With the support of Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Jacques Villon, Auguste Rodin and others, the first Salon d'Automne opens in Paris as a reaction to the conservatism of the Paris Salon.
• Koloman Moser and Josef Hoffmann found the Wiener Werkstätte in Vienna.
• Frederic Dorr Steele produces his first illustrations for Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories in the United States, for Collier's Weekly.
• Bernard Berenson publishes The Drawings of the Florentine Painters.
• :de:Anna Muthesius|Anna Muthesius publishes Das Eigenkleid der Frau.

  Works

• During what is known as his "Blue Period", Pablo Picasso paints Portrait of Angel Fernández de Soto Tête de femme, Vieux guitariste aveugle, The Tragedy, and La vie, among others.
• Cassius Marcellus Coolidge produces several of his Dogs Playing Poker series
• Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema – Silver Favourites
• Pompeo Coppini – Confederate Soldiers monument, Texas State Capitol
• Evelyn De Morgan – The Love Potion
• Gebhard Fugel and assistants – :de:Panorama Kreuzigung Christi|Panorama of the Crucifixion of Christ
• J. W. Godward
• * Amaryllis
• * :File:Godward The Old Old Story 1903.jpg|The Old, Old Story
• * The Rendezvous
• * :File:Godward Summer Flowers 1903.jpg|Summer Flowers
• Wassily Kandinsky – The Blue Rider
• Paul Klee – Inventionen series of etchings, including Jungfrau im Baum and Zwei Männer, einander in höherer Stellung vermutend, begegnen sich
• Peder Severin Krøyer – Sankthansbål på Skagen strand
• Henry Herbert La Thangue – :File:Moving Bracken by H H La Thangue, 1903, Guildhall Gallery, London.JPG|Mowing Bracken
• Margaret MacDonald – :File:Margaret MacDonald - Opera Of The Winds 1903.jpg|Opera Of The Winds
• Jacek Malczewski
• * :File:Jacek Malczewski Hamlet polski.jpg|Polish Hamlet: Portrait of Aleksander Wielopolski
• * Triptych: :File:Malczewski Jacek Prawo.jpg|Law, :File:Malczewski Jacek Ojczyzna.jpg|Motherland, :File:Sztuka.jpg|Art
• Paula Modersohn-Becker – The Old Farmer
• Edvard Munch – Dr. Linde's Sons
• Elisabet Ney – Statue of Albert Sidney Johnston,
• Camille Pissarro – :File:Camille Pissarro 038.jpg|Self-portrait
• Sir Edward Poynter – The Cave of the Storm Nymphs
• Tom Roberts – The Big Picture
• John Singer Sargent – Mrs. Fiske Warren and Her Daughter Rachel
• Hugo Simberg – The Wounded Angel
• Max Slevogt – :File:Francisco D'Andrade as Don Giovanni by Max Slevogt, 1903.jpg|The Singer Francisco D'Andrade as Don Giovanni in Mozart's Opera
• August Strindberg – :File:The Town, 1903.jpg|Staden
• Abbott Handerson Thayer – Stevenson Memorial
• Félix Vallotton – The Five Painters
• J. W. Waterhouse
• * Boreas
• * Echo and Narcissus

  Births

January to June

• January – Guan Zilan, Chinese avant-garde painter
• January 10 – Barbara Hepworth, English sculptor and artist
• January 19 – Sir Alfred Beit, 2nd Baronet, British politician, art collector and philanthropist and honorary Irish citizen
• March 7 – Maud Lewis, Canadian folk artist
• March 10 – Edward Bawden, English artist and illustrator
• March 14
• * Richard Eurich, English sea- and landscape painter
• * Adolph Gottlieb, American abstract expressionist painter and sculptor
• April 3 – Lola Álvarez Bravo, Mexican photographer
• April 16 – Thomas Hennell, English painter
• May 7 – Paul Ninas, American painter
• June 6 – Ceri Richards, Welsh painter
• June 15 – Victor Brauner, Romanian painter
• June 21 – Al Hirschfeld, American caricaturist

  July to December

• July 13 – Kenneth Clark, English author, museum director, broadcaster and art historian
• July 21 – Roy Neuberger, American art collector and patron
• July 22 – Eric Ravilious, English artist
• August 14 – Lodewijk Bruckman, Dutch magic realist painter
• August 24 – Graham Sutherland, English artist
• September 16 – Karl Zerbe, German-born painter
• September 20 – Gertrud Arndt, German photographer
• September 25 – Mark Rothko, Latvian-born American painter and printmaker
• September 29 – Walter Inglis Anderson, American painter
• October 15 – Otto Bettmann, German-born image archivist
• October 22 – Zlatyu Boyadzhiev, Bulgarian painter
• October 24 – Charlotte Perriand, French architect and designer
• October 25 – Harry Shoulberg, American expressionist painter]
• November 3 – Walker Evans, American photographer
• December 13 – John Piper, English painter
• December 24 – Joseph Cornell, American artist and sculptor
• December 30 – Candido Portinari, Brazilian painter
• date unknown – Bernard Lamotte, French illustrator, painter and muralist

  Deaths

• January 5 – Eleuterio Pagliano, Italian painter
• January 24 – Charles Wynne Nicholls, genre painter
• March 10 – Sophie Gengembre Anderson, genre painter
• April 24 – Walter Osborne, Irish impressionist painter
• May 9 – Paul Gauguin, painter
• June 8 – Robert Frederick Blum, American illustrator and lithographer
• July 14 – James McNeill Whistler, American painter and etcher
• August 17 – Hans Gude, painter
• September 13 – Carl Schuch, painter
• October 18 – John Callcott Horsley, painter
• October 26 – János Fadrusz, Hungarian sculptor
• November 12 or 13 – Camille Pissarro, Impressionist painter