Events from the year 1749 in art.
- January 13 – Friedrich Müller, painter, narrator, lyricist and dramatist (died 1825)
- January 23 – Joseph Reinhart, Swiss painter and draftsman (died 1824)
- February 14 – Henry Pelham, American painter, engraver, and cartographer (died 1806)
- April 6 – Moses Griffith, Welsh draughtsman, engraver and water colourist (died 1819)
- April 11 – Adélaïde Labille-Guiard, French portrait painter (died 1803)
- July 26 – John Warwick Smith, British watercolour landscape painter and illustrator (died 1831)
- August 28 – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, German poet, novelist, dramatist, theorist, painter (died 1832)
- October – Archibald Skirving, Scottish portrait painter (died 1819)
- October 27 – Joseph Strutt, engraver and antiquary (died 1802)
- November 8 – Anne Seymour Damer, English sculptor (died 1828)
- November 23 – Franz Kobell, German painter, etcher and draftsman (died 1822)
- November 29 – Johan Frederik Clemens, Danish etcher and printmaker (died 1831)
- date unknown
- George Beck, American painter and poet (died 1812)
- Paolo Borroni, Italian painter of the Neoclassical style (died 1819)
- Thomas Burke, Irish engraver and painter (died 1815)
- Thomas Daniell, English landscape painter (died 1840)
- Charles Nicolas Favart, French actor, playwright, and painter (died 1806)
- James Peale, American painter, best known for his miniature and still-life paintings, and a younger brother of noted painter Charles Willson Peale (died 1831)
- Edward Smyth, Irish sculptor (died 1812)
- Johann Ziegler, Austrian painter of landscapes and city scenes (died 1812)
- January 8 – Donato Creti, Italian painter of the Rococo period, active mostly in Bologna (born 1671)
- February – Peter Monamy, English marine painter (born 1681)
- February 8 – Jan van Huysum, Dutch painter (born 1682)
- March 12 – Alessandro Magnasco, Italian Rococo painter of genre or landscape scenes (born 1667)
- April 14 – Balthasar Denner, German portrait painter (born 1685)
- May 28 – Pierre Subleyras, French painter, active during the late-Baroque and early-Neoclassic period (born 1699)
- December 11 – Bernardino Ludovisi, Italian sculptor (born 1693)
- December 24 – Michelangelo Cerruti, Italian fresco artist (born 1663)
- date unknown
- probable
