Events from the year 1871 in art.

• March – Edward Lear settles at his villa in Sanremo.
• Spring – James McNeill Whistler publishes Sixteen etchings of scenes on the Thames and paints his first "moonlights" (later called "nocturnes") of the river.
• March 18– May 28 – Paris Commune:
  • April 5 – Federation of Artists, organized by Gustave Courbet, holds its first meeting in Paris. Membership includes Jules Dalou, Honoré Daumier, André Gill and Eugène Pottier; Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot and Édouard Manet are also members but do not actively participate.
  • May 16 – Napoleonic column in the Place Vendôme is pulled down according to a suggestion by Courbet, one of the events photographed by Bruno Braquehais.
  • May – André-Adolphe-Eugène Disdéri photographs dead Communards.
  • c. May – James Tissot flees Paris for London.
• June 14 – Camille Pissarro marries his mistress Julie Vellay in the London borough of Croydon and moves to Pontoise.
• August 14 – Courbet is sentenced to 6 months imprisonment and a fine for his participation in the Paris Commune; during his time in prison he produces a series of still life paintings of fruit and flowers. ^[1]
• Summer – Claude Monet visits Zaandam.
• December – Monet and his wife Camille move to Argenteuil.
• William Morris and Dante Gabriel Rossetti become tenants of Kelmscott Manor, which they share with Jane Morris.
• Marie Spartali marries William James Stillman.
• Edwin B. Crocker establishes the Crocker Art Museum in Sacramento, California.

• Frederic Edwin Church – The Parthenon
• Antonio Ciseri – Ecce Homo
• Confederate Monument (Liberty, Mississippi)
• Edgar Degas – Count Lepic and His Daughters
• Friedrich Drake – Statue of Alexander von Humboldt (Philadelphia)
• Thomas Eakins – Max Schmitt in a Single Scull
• Martin Johnson Heade – Cattleya Orchid and Three Hummingbirds
• Frank Holl – No Tidings from the Sea
• Daniel Huntington – The Narrows, Lake George
• Eastman Johnson – The Old Stagecoach
• Ivan Kramskoi – The Mermaids
• Édouard Manet
  • The Harbour at Bordeaux (E.G. Bührle collection, Zürich)
  • The Barricade (Civil War) ( Museum of Fine Arts (Budapest))
• John Everett Millais – Victory O Lord!
• Claude Monet – A Windmill at Zaandam
• Albert Joseph Moore – Sea Gulls
• Camille Pissarro – Lordship Lane Station, Upper Norwood
• Vinnie Ream – Abraham Lincoln (marble, United States Capitol rotunda, Washington, D.C.)
• Randolph Rogers – Statue of Abraham Lincoln (bronze, Philadelphia)
• Dante Gabriel Rossetti
  • Dante's Dream
  • Pandora
• Amanda Sidwall – Self-portrait
• George Blackall Simonds – The Falconer sculpture
• Vasily Vereshchagin
  • At the city wall: "Let them in!"
  • The Apotheosis of War
• Heinrich von Angeli – Crown Princess Victoria of Prussia
• George Frederic Watts – Portrait of Frederic Leighton
• Alfred Waud – A Home on the Mississippi
• James McNeill Whistler
  • Arrangement in Grey and Black No.1 (" Whistler's Mother")
  • Nocturne: Blue and Silver – Chelsea
  • Symphony in Grey: Early Morning, Thames
  • Variations in Pink And Grey – Chelsea
  • Variations in Violet and Green – Chelsea

• January 27 – Samuel Peploe, Scottish painter (died 1935)
• March 2 – Albert Herter, American painter (died 1950)
• March 9 – Granville Redmond, American painter (died 1935)
• April 11 – Theodor Pallady, Romanian painter (died 1956)
• May ? – Elinor Darwin, née Monsell, Irish-born engraver and portrait painter (died 1954)
• May 1 – Miklós Ligeti, Hungarian sculptor (died 1944)
• May 11 – Mariano Fortuny, Spanish-born fashion designer (died 1949)
• May 27 – Georges Rouault, French Expressionist painter and stained glass artist (died 1958)
• June 12 – Victor David Brenner, Lithuanian-born American medalist, sculptor and engraver (died 1924)
• July 24 – Giacomo Balla, Italian painter (died 1958)
• August 22 – Émile André, French architect and designer (died 1933)
• October 26 – Guillermo Kahlo, German-born photographer (died 1941)
• date unknown – Peter Moog, German outsider artist (died 1930)

• January 1 – Alexander Munro, Scottish-born Pre-Raphaelite sculptor (born 1825)
• January 14 – Eduardo Zamacois y Zabala, Spanish painter (born 1841)
• January 18 – Sir George Hayter, English painter, specialising in portraits (born 1792)
• January 19 – Henri Regnault, French painter (born 1843)
• February 8 – Moritz von Schwind, Austrian painter (born 1804)
• February 20 – Paul Kane, Irish-Canadian painter (born 1810)
• February 26 – Sophia Hawthorne, American painter and illustrator (born 1809)
• March 3 – Michael Thonet, German-Austrian furniture designer (born 1796)
• March – Emma Fürstenhoff, Swedish florist (born 1802)
• April 6 – Emma Eleonora Kendrick, English miniature painter (born 1788)
• April 24 – Karl Girardet, French painter (born 1813)
• June 9 – Anna Atkins, English botanist and pioneer photographer (born 1799)
• June 19 – Johann Fischbach, Austrian painter of landscapes and genre arts (born 1797)
• July 30 – Edwin Wilkins Field, English lawyer and painter (born 1804)
• October 14 – Johan Frederik Møller, Danish painter and photographer (born 1797)
• December 9 – Josef Mánes, Czech painter (born 1820)
• December 21 – Paul Guigou, French painter (born 1834)