1780 in art

Events from the year 1780 in art.

• 1 May – The Royal Academy Exhibition of 1780 opens in London, the first to be held at the Academy's new headquarters at Somerset House

• John Singleton Copley – Portrait of Hugh Montgomerie
• Jacques-Louis David
  • Portrait of Count Stanislas Potocki
  • Saint Roch Interceding with the Virgin for the Plague-Stricken
• Thomas Gainsborough – Portrait of Jeffery Amherst
• Philip James de Loutherbourg – Warley Camp
• Jean-Pierre Norblin de La Gourdaine – Les Marionettes polonaises
• Francisco Goya – Christ Crucified
• Francis Holman – The moonlight Battle of Cape St Vincent, 16 January 1780
• Jacob More
  • Landscape with Classical Figures, Cicero at his Villa
  • Mount Vesuvius in Eruption: The Last Days of Pompeii
• Joshua Reynolds
  • Portrait of Sir William Chambers
  • Self-Portrait
• John Trumbull – George Washington
• Francis Wheatley – The Irish House of Commons
• Johann Zoffany
  • Double Portrait of Henry and Mary Styleman (commissioned)
  • Portrait of Tipu Sultan

• January 10 – Pieter Christoffel Wonder, Dutch painter active in England (died 1852)
• February 15 – Alfred Edward Chalon, Swiss portrait painter (died 1860)
• February 18 – Alexey Venetsianov, Russian genre painter (died 1847)
• April 14 – Edward Hicks, American folk artist (died 1849)
• June 12 – Henry Hoppner Meyer, English portrait painter (died 1847)
• August 8 – Étienne Bouhot, French painter and art teacher (died 1862)
• August 29 – Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, French Neoclassical painter (died 1867)
• September – Samuel Colman, English painter (died 1845)
• September 15 – Johann Peter Krafft, German-Austrian painter (died 1856)
• October 26 – Alexandre-Évariste Fragonard, French painter and sculptor in the troubadour style (died 1850)
• date unknown
  • Johann Adam Ackermann, German landscape painter (died 1853)
  • Giovacchino Cantini, Italian engraver (died 1844)
  • Jan Krzysztof Damel, Lithuanian neoclassicist painter (died 1840)

• February 14 – Gabriel de Saint-Aubin, French draftsman, printmaker, etcher and painter (born 1724)
• February 21 – Francesco Foschi, Italian landscape painter (born 1710)
• March 3 – Joseph Highmore, British portrait and historical painter (born 1692)
• May 6 – Gaspare Bazzani, Italian painter active in Reggio as a painter of vedute or landscapes (date of birth unknown)
• July 11 – Luis Egidio Meléndez, Spanish still-life painter (born 1716)
• September 6 – Françoise Basseporte, French court painter (born 1701)
• September 7 – Pieter Barbiers, Dutch painter (born 1717)
• October 17 – Bernardo Bellotto, Italian urban landscape painter or vedutista, and printmaker in etching (born 1720)
• date unknown
  • James Giles, British porcelain decorator (born 1718)
  • Dionigi Valesi, Italian printmaker active in Verona and Venice (born 1750)
• probable
  • Robert Hunter, Irish painter (date of birth unknown)
  • Nicolas Jean Baptiste Poilly, French draftsman and engraver (born 1712)
  • Rocco Pozzi, Italian painter and engraver (born 1700)
  • Wenceslaus Werlin, Austrian portrait artist (date of birth unknown)