List of Famous people who died in 1903

Hugo Philipp Jacob Wolf was an Austrian composer of Slovene origin, particularly noted for his art songs, or Lieder. He brought to this form a concentrated expressive intensity which was unique in late Romantic music, somewhat related to that of the Second Viennese School in concision but diverging greatly in technique.

Julius Victor Carus was a German zoologist, comparative anatomist and entomologist.

Sebastián Herrero y Espinosa de los Monteros C.O. was a Spanish prelate of the Catholic Church who beginning in 1875 served briefly as the Bishop of Cuenca, Vitoria, and Oviedo, and then 15 years as Bishop of Cordoba. In his last appointment he was Archbishop of Valencia from 1898 until his death in 1903. He became a cardinal less than six months before his death.

James Abbott McNeill Whistler was an American artist active during the American Gilded Age and based primarily in the United Kingdom. He was averse to sentimentality and moral allusion in painting, and a leading proponent of the credo "art for art's sake". His signature for his paintings took the shape of a stylized butterfly possessing a long stinger for a tail. The symbol combined both aspects of his personality: his art is marked by a subtle delicacy, while his public persona was combative. He found a parallel between painting and music, and entitled many of his paintings "arrangements", "harmonies", and "nocturnes", emphasizing the primacy of tonal harmony. His most famous painting, Arrangement in Grey and Black No. 1 (1871), commonly known as Whistler's Mother, is a revered and often parodied portrait of motherhood. Whistler influenced the art world and the broader culture of his time with his theories and his friendships with other leading artists and writers.

Pierre-Étienne Piestre, known as Eugène Cormon, was a French dramatist and librettist. He used his mother's name, Cormon, during his career.