Events from the year 1987 in art.

• 10 December – Musée d'art moderne (Saint-Étienne) opens as a separate institution.
• 22 July – Palestinian cartoonist Naji al-Ali is shot in London; he dies 28 August.

• November 20 until January 24, 1988 - Ana Mendieta: A Retrospective at the New Museum in New York City.^[1]

• Archibald Prize – William Robinson, Equestrian self-portrait
• John Moores Painting Prize - Tim Head for "Cow mutations"^[2]
• Turner Prize – Richard Deacon

Shortlisted were: Patrick Caulfield, Helen Chadwick, Richard Long, Declan McGonagle and Thérèse Oulton.

• Alice Aycock – Three-Fold Manifestation II (sculpture)^[3]
• Wayne Chabre – John von Neumann (gargoyle, Eugene, Oregon)
• Martin Creed – Work No. 1
• Rose Finn-Kelcey – Bureau de Change (installation)
• Anselm Kiefer – Osiris and Isis
• Ulrich Rückriem – Untitled (granite sculpture, Art Institute of Chicago)
• Richard Serra – Fulcrum (Cor-Ten steel sculpture, Broadgate, City of London)^[4][5]
• Andres Serrano – Piss Christ (photograph)
• Frank Stella – Decanter (sculpture, Houston, Texas)
• Werner Tübke – Early Bourgeois Revolution in Germany
• Ernest Zobole – House Interior in Landscape

• 1 August – CJ de Silva, Filipino art director, painter, graphic designer and illustrator^[6]
• Xyza Cruz Bacani, Filipina street photographer
• Ibrahim Mahama, Ghanaian installation artist

• 14 February – Else Halling, Norwegian tapestry weaver (b. 1899)
• 18 February – William Coldstream, English realist painter (b. 1908)
• 22 February – Andy Warhol, American artist, director and writer (b. 1928)
• 26 March – Georg Muche, German painter (b. 1895)
• 19 April – Milt Kahl, American animator (b. 1909)
• 8 June - Alexander Iolas, Egyptian born Greek gallerist and collector (b. 1908)

• 30 July – Michel Tapié, French artist, critic, curator and art collector (b. 1909)
• 29 August – Naji al-Ali, Palestinian cartoonist (b. c.1938)
• September – Alice Rahon, French-born Mexican painter and poet (b. 1904).
• 25 September – Harry Holtzman, American artist (b. 1912).
• 4 October – Kalervo Palsa, Finnish artist (b. 1947).
• 27 October – Jean Hélion, French painter (b. 1904)^[7]
• 28 October – André Masson, French graphic artist (b. 1896)^[8]
• 4 November – Raphael Soyer Russian-born American painter, (b. 1899).
• 15 November – Ernő Goldfinger, Hungarian-born architect and furniture designer (b. 1902).
• 2 December – Robert Filliou, French Fluxus artist (b. 1926)
• 18 December - Dimitrije Bašičević, Serbian painter and sculptor (b. 1921)

• Roland Ansieau, French Art Deco graphic artist (b. 1901).
• Huang Yao, Chinese artist (b. 1917)
• Raymond Moore, English landscape photographer (b. 1920).
• Myron Stout, American abstract painter (b. 1908).

• 1987 in fine arts of the Soviet Union

• Media related to 1987 in art at Wikimedia Commons