Events from the year 1787 in art.

• Seventeen-year-old Thomas Lawrence arrives in London and takes lodgings near Sir Joshua Reynolds.

• William Beechey – Dorothea Jordan as Rosalind
• Antonio Canova – Tomb of Pope Clement XIV
• Jacques-Louis David – The Death of Socrates (completed)
• Thomas Gainsborough
  • Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire
  • Mrs. Richard Brinsley Sheridan
• Francisco Goya
  • Highwaymen Attacking a Coach
  • The Snowstorm (Winter)
  • The Swing
• Louise Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun – Marie Antoinette and her Children (completed)
• Jacques-Antoine-Marie Lemoine – Portrait of a Woman with Her Son and Daughter in a Balcony Window
• Philip James de Loutherbourg – Snowdon from Capel Curig
• George Romney – Mrs Jordan as Peggy
• Johann Heinrich Wilhelm Tischbein – Goethe in the Campagna

• (unknown)

• January 7 – Patrick Nasmyth, Scottish landscape painter (died 1831)
• February 3 – Karl Joseph Brodtmann, Swiss artist, lithographer, printmaker, publisher and bookseller (died 1862)
• March 10 – William Etty, English painter, especially of nudes (died 1849)
• April 9 – William Finden, English line engraver (died 1852)
• August 17 – Maxim Vorobiev, Russian Romantic landscape painter (died 1855)
• August 20 – Jean-Pierre Cortot, French sculptor (died 1843)
• September 11 – Karl Wilhelm Wach, German painter (died 1845)
• September 18 – Johann David Passavant, German painter, curator and artist (died 1861)
• October 2 – Nicolas Gosse, French historical painter (died 1878)
• October 13 – William Brockedon, English painter (died 1854)
• November 18 – Louis Daguerre, French artist and chemist, recognized for his invention of the daguerreotype process of photography (died 1851)
• November 22 – Copley Fielding, English watercolour landscape painter (died 1855)
• December 16 – François Joseph Heim, French painter (died 1865)
• date unknown
  • Heinrich Adam, German painter (died 1862)
  • Giuseppe Bisi, Italian painter, mainly of landscapes (died 1869)
  • Johannes Flintoe, Danish-Norwegian painter of Norwegian landscapes (died 1870)
  • Harriet Gouldsmith, English landscape painter and etcher (died 1863)
  • François-Joseph Navez, Belgian neo-classical painter (died 1869)
  • Xavier Sigalon, French Romantic painter (died 1837)

• February 4 – Pompeo Batoni, Italian painter (born 1708)
• March 17 – Anton August Beck, German engraver (born 1713)
• June 23 – Pierre L'Enfant, French painter (born 1704)
• July 25 – Arthur Devis – English portrait painter, particularly known for his conversation pieces and other such small portraits (born 1712)
• September 5 – John Brown, Scottish portrait-draftsman and painter at Edinburgh (born 1749)
• November 10 – Cristoforo Dall'Acqua, Italian painter and engraver (born 1734)
• December 12 – Jean Valade, French painter (born 1710)
• date unknown
  • Mason Chamberlin, English portrait painter (born 1727)
  • John Cheere, English sculptor (born 1709)
  • Nicolas Desportes, French painter of hunting scenes (born 1718)
  • Erik Westzynthius the Younger, Finnish painter (born 1743)
  • Francesco Zugno, Italian Rococo painter (born c. 1708)
• probable - Thomas Engleheart, English sculptor and modeller in wax (date of birth unknown)