Art and Art History

Research guide for students and faculty in the Art and Art History department

Images & Museums

If you need high quality digital images of works of art, the following resources should be your first stop.

Also, browse call numbers 709-759 (Art) and 779 (Photography) in the 2nd floor stacks and the 3rd floor oversize section of the Library for books that include reproductions. (These can be scanned).

Another idea for finding images online is to visit the website of the museum or gallery that the original piece is housed. Many have been adding high-quality digital images of their collections to their websites. As always, be aware of copyright restrictions.  Please check out the tab at the top of this page to find some recommended museum sites.

Art Images for College Teaching (University of Michigan Library) - This is a royalty-free image exchange resource for the educational community. The AICT site is maintained and distributed under the general auspices of the Minneapolis College of Art & Design (MCAD).

Art Resource - The world’s largest photo archive of fine art, offers a range of material from prehistoric times to the present.  We carry the works of almost every major museum in Europe, and function as the official rights and permissions representative for many institutions in the United States and abroad.

Archives of American Art - The world’s pre-eminent and most widely used research center dedicated to collecting, preserving, and providing access to primary sources that document the history of the visual arts in America. The images collection includes photographic images of artists, exhibition installations, manuscripts, and events.

Getty Research Portal - An online search platform providing global access to digitized art history texts in the public domain, including rare books and related literature, plus historical auction sales catalogs.

Google Art Project - Over 1000 artworks featured from 17 museums, including Palace of Versailles in France, the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam and the Freer Gallery of Art at the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C. Virtual gallery tours for 400 rooms using Google Street View technology. Each of the museums allowed one artwork to be photographed with extremely high-resolution "gigapixel" technology.

Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History - This art history resource, provided by The Metropolitan Museum, provides 1,000 essays, around 7,600 works of art, 300 chronologies, and 3,700 keywords. The website is presented in a timeline format and contains works by curators from The Met.

Smithsonian Open Access - This website provides access to over 28 million images. The site allows users to download, remix and reuse any of their materials without getting permission. The collection includes 2D and 3D images, as well as data.

VADS Online Resource for Visual Arts - VADS is the online resource for visual arts. It has provided services to the academic community for 12 years and has built up a considerable portfolio of visual art collections comprising over 100,000 images that are freely available and copyright cleared for use in learning, teaching and research in the UK.

Web Gallery of Art - A virtual museum and searchable database of European painting and sculpture of the Romanesque, Gothic, Renaissance, Baroque, Neoclassicism, Romanticism periods (1000-1850), currently containing over 29.000 reproductions. Picture commentaries, artist biographies are available. Guided tours, period music, catalogue, free postcard and other services are provided.

Saint Mary's College Art Museum - SMC

Bay Area Art Museums - From the Hearst Art Gallery at St. Mary's, a directory of museums within a 45 minute drive of the college.

Museum of Online Museums - contains links to online collections and exhibits, ranging from classical art to architecture.

The British Library

J. Paul Getty Museum - Thousands of images of artworks are available for download, without charge, under the Getty's Open Content Program. Look for the Download button under the image.

Los Angeles County Museum

Metropolitan Museum of Art collection online

MoMa

National Gallery of Art

Rijksmuseum’s digitized collection

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art - SFMOMA maintains an internationally recognized collection of modern and contemporary art.

Smithsonian’s Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery - Asian and American artworks

Smithsonian Museum of American Art - Excellent collection of material about art and artists in the US from multiple national collections housed at the Smithsonian Institute.

Tate Collection - Beautifully designed online library of the Tate's collections covering art from 1500 to contemporary works. Searchable by artist name, genres, subject terms, with excellent images and descriptions.

Virtual libraries museums pages

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