Events from the year 1837 in art.

• January 20 – Death of the neo-classical architect Sir John Soane gives effect to the creation of his London house as Sir John Soane's Museum.
• June 1 – The Government-funded Normal School of Design, predecessor of the Royal College of Art, begins classes at Somerset House in London.^[1]
• June 10 – Galerie des Batailles at the Palace of Versailles in France, designed by Pierre-François-Léonard Fontaine with Frédéric Nepveu for the display of sculptures and historical paintings, is opened.
• July – Edward Lear leaves Knowsley Hall in England to travel to Rome.
• Art Union of London founded.
• Marie Louise Élisabeth Vigée-Lebrun publishes the second volume of her memoirs.

• Prix de Rome (for painting) – Thomas Couture
• Knighthood – Augustus Wall Callcott

• Ditlev Blunck – Danske kunstnere på et romersk osteri ("Danish Artists at the Osteria la Gonsola, Rome")
• David d'Angers – Philopoemen Wounded (sculpture)
• Eugène Delacroix
  • murals in Salon du Roi, Chamber of Deputies of France, Palais Bourbon, Paris (completed)
  • Self-portrait
• Benjamin Duterrau – portrait of Derrimut
• William Dyce – Francesca da Rimini
• William Etty – The Sirens and Ulysses
• Caspar David Friedrich – Landscape with Owl, Grave, and Coffin
• Edwin Landseer – The Old Shepherd's Chief Mourner
• John Martin
  • Manfred and the Witch of the Alps
  • Manfred on the Jungfrau
• Wijnand Nuijen – Shipwreck off a Rocky Coast
• Juan Mauricio Rugendas – Battle of Maipú
• Geskel Saloman – portrait of Smetana
• Joseph von Führich – The Road to Emmaus Appearance
• Sir David Wilkie
  • Josephine and the Fortune-Teller
  • Portrait of William IV

• January – Daniel Cottier, Scottish artist and designer (died 1891)
• January 1 – Adolf Mosengel, German landscape painter (died 1885)
• January 27 – Tomioka Tessai, Japanese painter and calligrapher in Meiji period (died 1924)
• February 12 – Thomas Moran, English-born American landscape painter of the Hudson River School (died 1926)
• March 27 – John MacWhirter, Scottish landscape painter (died 1911)
• April 10 – Tranquillo Cremona, Italian painter (died 1878)
• May 8 – Alphonse Legros, French painter and etcher (died 1911)
• June 8 – Ivan Kramskoi, Russian painter and art critic (died 1887)
• July 4 – Carolus-Duran, French painter (died 1917)
• December 18 – Ernest Hoschedé, French businessman and collector of Impressionist paintings (died 1891)

• January 11 – Baron François Gérard, French painter (born 1770)
• January 29 – Andrew Plimer, British artist specialised in portrait miniatures (born 1763)^[2]
• February 8 – Ernst Willem Jan Bagelaar, Dutch engraver (born 1775)^[3]
• February 17 – Johann Baptist von Lampi the Younger, Austrian portrait painter (born 1775)^[4]
• February 27 – Françoise-Jeanne Ridderbosch, Belgian painter and engraver (born 1754)
• March 8 – Domingos Sequeira, Portuguese painter (born 1768)
• March 16 – François-Xavier Fabre, French painter of historical subjects (born 1766)
• March 31 – John Constable, English landscape painter (born 1776)
• May 18 – Marguerite Gérard, French painter and etcher (born 1761)
• August – Henry Behnes, English sculptor (born 1800
• August 9 – Xavier Sigalon, French painter (born 1787)
• September 18 – Pietro Fontana, Italian engraver (born 1762)
• December 28 – Boris Orlovsky, Russian sculptor (born 1793)
• date unknown
  • Juliane Wilhelmine Bause, German landscape etcher (born 1768)
  • Thomas Richmond, English miniature-painter (born 1771)
  • Charles Henry Schwanfelder, English animal, landscape and portrait painter (born 1774)
  • Yi Jaegwan, Korean genre works painter in the late Joseon period (born 1783)