Library Research Guides: WRIT 127: Writing for Change (Art Research): Find Images

Database Spotlight - ARTSTOR

ARTstor logo. Retrieved from Wikimedia Commons

ARTSTOR Digital Library is a database that contains more than two million images of art, architecture, the humanities, the social sciences, the sciences, and photography which span various cultures and time periods.

Webinars and Guides available to get you started

Find Images

Some of these are Open Access Image Collections (images that can be viewed and downloaded for free, without copyright restrictions). Remember - It is your responsibility to make sure that images you find fall within the public domain. Always check an institution's 'Terms and Conditions' regarding image use.

Google Image Search
Google Arts & Culture
Online platform through which the public can access high-resolution images of artworks housed in the initiative’s partner museums
Davis Museum Collections Database
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Explore the thousands of works in the collections of the MFA Boston
Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum
Explore objects in Isabella's collection
The British Museum
British Library Images Online
Historic photographs, art, and maps from the British Library.
The Getty Trust's Open Content Program
The Gateway allows users to search across several of the Getty repositories, including the J. Paul Getty Museum, the Getty Conservation Institute, the Getty Foundation, and the Getty Research Institute.
LACMA (Los Angeles County Museum of Art)
Free access to more than 20,000 high quality downloadable images of artworks from LACMA's encyclopedic collection.
The Met Collection
The Metropolitan Museum of Art made all images of public-domain works in its collection available under Creative Commons Zero (CC0).
National Gallery of Art - NGA Images
Repository of digital images of the collections of the National Gallery of Art. On this website you can search, browse, share, and download images. More than 25,000 open access digital images up to 3000 pixels each are available free of charge for download and use.
NYPL Digital Gallery
Provides free and open access to over 800,000 images digitized from the The New York Public Library's vast collections, including illuminated manuscripts, historical maps, vintage posters, rare prints, photographs and more.
The National Gallery, London
Search or browse the National gallery's collection of more than 2,600 paintings.
Victoria and Albert Museum
Explore the V&A online
Rijksmuseum: The Museum of the Netherlands
The Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam offers 273,000 images of its works through the Rijksstudio.
Walters Art Museum
More than 22,000 items in the Walters Art Museum can now be viewed and downloaded online for free, without copyright restrictions.
Wellcome Collection
This site provides access to over 100,000 high resolution images including manuscripts, paintings, etchings, early photography and advertisements from the historical holdings of the Wellcome Library in London. The images have been released under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) licence and can be used free of charge, with an acknowledgement of the original source (Wellcome Library, London).
Yale University
Free online access to high-resolution images from Yale's cultural collections.
CREDO Reference
An interdisciplinary research tool that allows you to search over 300 reference works simultaneously, limiting to audio or visual materials.
Flickr.com
Browse Creative Commons images / Search for Creative Commons images / Search by color with MulticolorEngine
History of Medicine Artifacts
Historical medical instruments, artifacts and other objects ranging in age from the 16th to 20th centuries.
Art UK
Website which aims to show the entire UK national collection of oil paintings, the stories behind the paintings, and where to see them for real. It is made up of paintings from thousands of museums and other public institutions around the country.
Domestic Interiors Database (Compiled by AHRC Centre for the Study of the Domestic Interior)
A free, open-access resource with over 3,300 entries, the database brings together representations of the interior from the 15th century through the 21st century. This database is unique in allowing researchers to study "the changing appearance and layout of rooms in a range of domestic buildings; the objects that furnished those rooms and the ways rooms and objects were represented; how people used rooms and furnishings; and how they thought about them."

Subject Librarian

Brooke Henderson

Email Me

Contact:

Art Library, Jewett Art Center
Phone: 781-283-3258

Subjects: Art & Architecture, Media Arts & Sciences