LibGuides: Art+Design: Art on the Web

Museum and Archives on the Web

American Folk Art Museum The American Folk Art Museum in New York City offers this website containing a wealth of information about folk art, its collection, research resources, and valuable curriculum guides. The museum's focus is on "making the study of folk and self-taught art available to and meaningful for all," and it succeeds in this goal by providing a visual invitation to its many exhibitions, workshops, and lectures. Photographs show views inside the museum and participants engaged in activities, and a link to an active Facebook page allows for visitor feedback. The museum's collection of traditional American folk art has grown to more than 8,000 artworks, spanning the turn of the 18th century to contemporary works by "art brut" creators-artists working outside the establishment art scene. Collection highlights can be browsed by artist name or types, such as paintings, textiles, photographs, three-dimensional works, and works on paper, and recent acquisitions. The museum houses notable special collections of Henry Darger (1892-1973), along with exemplary works by Ralph Fasanella (painter of New York's "social reality"), Clementine Hunter, Mose Tolliver, William Edmondson, and Horace Pippin, among many other artists. A My Collections tool allows users to select, save, and share images. Spectacularly detailed images of the art, with descriptions, are included. Following a major cataloging project, the museum's library and archives will open by appointment to researchers in fall 2015. The site allows access to the library catalog, the museum's publications, and a digital collection of the museum's now-ceased serials Folk Art and The Clarion-extremely valuable research sources indexed in the MLA International Bibliography. The nearly 50 Vimeo videos of the lectures and discussions by experts in the field are a terrific resource for college courses. Folk art is found in unexpected places, and this superb website highlights many such treasures ... (CHOICE Review) --N. M. Lambert, University of South Carolina Upstate
Archives of American Art The Smithsonian Institute's photographs, diaries, oral history interviews, sketches, scrapbooks, business records, and other documents that support the study of the history of the visual arts in America.
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See also https://www.si.edu/search?edan_q=art%2Barchives&
The Beazley Archive The Classical Art Research Centre (CARC) at the Beazley Archive makes hundreds of thousands of images available covering pottery, ancient gems, and thousands of texts on Greek and Roman art.
Center for Creative Photography at the University of Arizona Libraries Sponsored by the U. of AZ, this site includes the archives of Ansel Adams, Harry Callahan, edward Weston, Garry Winogrand, and other important 20th-century photographers. The images are accessible under the headings Artists, Collections, or Images.
Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum Tabs ..."include practical access information, and current updates on ogoing building renovations (Visit Us), events and exhibtions (What's On), design resources from the collection for general public and scholars (Explore Design), public education programs from K-12 to graduate studeies (Learn), and information on memberships, internship or staff openings (Get Involved)."
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"To date, the alpha release of the collection database includes 60% of museum holdings, with jargon-free object information and downloadable digital images that are frequently of good quality." from M. Nilsen, IU, South Bend for CHOICE
Digital Egypt for Universities Includes art, architecture and history of ancient Egypt, complete with 3-D reconstructions of 14 archaeological sites.
Digital Gallery (Nat'l. Library of Scotland) Among the diverse topics covered are early photographic images from the Edinburgh Calotype Club, WW II propaganda, early books printed in Scotland, the Scottish Science Hall of Fame, and the Scottish Beekeepers' Association's collection of rare books. Included are engravings, photographs, audio clips, full-text images, and transcriptions. See also https://www.nls.uk/collections/digital-collections/
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The Gallery's Maps link goes directly to the overall library website, which features enlargeable images of more than 20,000 historical maps of Scotland. Most Gallery entries have links to additional resources, including other libraries and websites. Also available is a Browse the Digital Archive feature that leads to other digitized content from the library's collections.
Eiteljorg Museum (Indianapolis)
Located 15 minutes by car, or 30 minutes by bus from Butler, the Eiteljorg is known for its indigenous and Western art collections.
Freer/Sackler Galleries & Freer Study Collection Digitized collections of the Freer and Sackler Galleries and the Freer Study Collection, expanding regularly with new acquisitions.
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See also https://asia.si.edu/collections/freer-study-collection/ and https://asia.si.edu/?s=Freer%2FSackler+Galleries+%26+Freer+Study+Collection&search_context=objects&post_type=tms_object
Georgia O'Keefe Museum The website contains excellent overviews of the artist's life and art, and allows visitors to explore the collections and current exhibits ... What may be most exciting for scholars and instructors, however, is the online collections component of the website. The museum has digitized many of the artist's artworks along with correspondence, photographs, and personal items. The collections also include the William Innes Homer papers, from the noted historian of American art. Finding aids for the collections detail their scope and organization. Using these collections a researcher can examine from the comfort of home numerous treasures including, for example, invitations for museum openings, postcards the artist sent, and love notes left in drawers for her partner, Alfred Stieglitz ..." --K. Greer, Oakland University (Choice review)
Getty Publications Virtual Library
More than 300 of Getty Publications' books to read and download for free
Herron School of Art Library
The Internet Archive The Internet Archive provides free public access to collections of digitized materials, including auction catalogs, scanned images, and scanned books from partner museum libraries.
MASS MoCA Museum of Contemporary Art Mass MoCA emerged in the late 1990s as an epic space for the installation and performance of contemporary art, with many works commissioned by the museum. Located in a vast, abandoned 19th-century factory in North Adams, Massachusetts, it is unparalleled in scale and programming. Its website is a tool for prospective visitors or scholars to access an amazing amount of high-quality content. One of the most valuable sections is In the Galleries, where one can search for and view upcoming, current, or past exhibitions dating back to 1996 (although, unfortunately, past performing arts events and concerts are not captured). The calendar reflects the event-based nature of this unique museum, which does not actually own permanent collections. Exhibition entries typically include a short description of an installation and present a rich buffet of associated events, images, embedded video, links to external sites, or digitized versions of exhibition publications. " from ChOICE, A.H. Simmons, National Gallery of Art.
Metropolitan Museum of Art Website of the Met Museum in NYC.
The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA)
National Gallery, London Useful in preparing for a trip to the National Gallery. Contains images, videos, recorded gallery talks, events, publications, and other resources related to the museum's current exhibitions. Contains useful info about artists and a listing of 2,300 paintings. Includes an art glossary. (from CHOICE review by E.M. Hansen, Art Institute of Pittsburgh.)
National Gallery of Art
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See also https://www.nga.gov/collection/collection-search.html
NGA Images (National Gallery of Art) More than 50,000 open access digital images up to 4000 pixels each are available free of charge for download and use.
National Museum of American Art (Smithsonian)
National Museum of the American Indian The portal highlights current and upcoming exhibits, while understated tabs lead to a wealth of resources ...Under Explore, a drop-down menu navigates to Exhibitions, For Families, and Live Webcasts, while three additional links yield the true treasures within—Collections, For Educators and Students, and Film and Media ...NMAI has one of the most extensive collections of Native arts and artifacts in the world, as well as photographic, manuscript, and media collections, covering all culture areas of the Americas from past to present. Representative images of objects from these collections are searchable by Peoples/Cultures, Artists, Individuals, Places, and features; extensive metadata includes artist notes, media/materials, technique, dimensions, and provenance. The site also provides information on the significance, history, and conservation of collections, and NMAI's collaborative approach to repatriation. Resources for educators and students range from classroom lessons to an interactive site with games showcasing four nations' responses to environmental challenges." M. Cedar Face, Southern Oregon U. (from CHOICE)
Newfields (Indianapolis Museum of Art)
This is the website for the art museum nearest you!
NYPL Digital Gallery: Turn-of-the-Century Posters Anna Palmer Draper collected hundreds of posters during her lifetime. When she passed away in 1914, she willed them to the New York Public Library. In the 1930s and 1940s Library staff members mounted the posters on card stock and bound them into large volumes, alphabetically by artist. Many of them are now available on this site. They represent a broad pastiche of magazine, book, and newspaper posters from the 1890s into the early 20th century. Students of illustration, design, and art histor
Rijksstudio from the Rijksmuseum "Offers open access to 125,000-plus images of its [Rijksmuseum's] collections online. Other online collections, such as Google Art Project (CH, Aug'11, 48-6689), lack this site's degree of functionality. The Rijksmuseum has carefully organized its digital collection for ease of use by both veteran art lovers and casual browsers. Home page links include Explore the Collection, Search the Collection, and Try the Master Matcher. Collection capabilities allow users to reorganize, analyze, and interpret the collection in a variety of ways, thus adding a component of interactivity. The Master Matcher is an engaging option that asks viewers to complete a short quiz, and then matches them with artists that would be a good fit--serving almost as a personal curator. The reproduction of the paintings is very detailed ..." A. M. Iuliano for CHOICE
Smithsonian Open Access
Millions of images of material and art from the Smithsonian collections, available to use, reuse, and remix -- all open access through a CC0 creative commons declaration of no copyright. These collections cover holdings from the Smithsonian's 21 museums, 9 research centers, libraries, archives, and the National Zoo.
The State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia
Tate Gallery
Vatican Museums
Victoria and Albert Museum
Video Gallery (Getty Museum) A collection of 156 short video segments (2-11 minutes in length) about the Getty Museum, making art, various artists, past exhibitions, and more.

Specialized Sites of Interest

Ad*Access The Duke University Libraries have an extensive physical and online collection of advertisements that appeared in magazines and newspapers in the U.S. and Canada from 1911-1955. The Ad*Access collection focuses on advertisements in five main subject areas: Radio, Television, Transportation, Beauty and Hygiene, and World War II.
AdViews: A Digital Archive of Vintage Television Commercials "A free digital archive of television commercials from the 1950s to the 1980s, this site provides access to commercials created or collected by the New York advertising agency Benton & Bowles. The archival collection is housed at Duke University's Harman Center for Sales, Advertising & Marketing History and is a collaborative project with the Digital Collections Program at Duke." (CHOICE)
AIGA: The Professional Association for Design Sponsored by the American Institute for Graphic Arts, this site provides a wealth of information from job ads, to copyright info, to a link to the AIGA design archives and much more. Sections labeled Inspiration, Professional Resources, Education, Design and Business, Society and Environment, and Writing provides links to specific resources.
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Beyond its professional value to designers and students in the graphic and visual arts, the site's coverage of significant topics, timely articles, and digitized media in the Design Archives will be important across all academic disciplines.
(from D.A. Berona for CHOICE).
America's First Illustrator: Alexander Anderson The New York Public Library presents this digital edition of the scrapbooks of this 19th-century master illustrator. Anderson (1775-1870) created wood engravings to illustrate books, periodicals, newspapers, broadsides, and posters, based on his own designs, and the work of other artists. Some of the more prominent works illustrated by Anderson include John Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress", O.L. Holley's "Life of Benjamin Franklin"
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This digital collection contains 1,332 of Anderson's engravings that can be browsed or searched by subject.
CAA Code of Best Practices in Fair Use in the Visual Arts College Art Association's open access publication covering best practices in fair use in the visual arts.
Cartoon Image Database "The digital image database of the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum at Ohio State University contains thousands of scanned images from the collection; however, these represent only a small portion of the total collection. Sources are original art and tear sheets or other printed materials. The collection is the home of the world's most comprehensive academic research facility dedicated to documenting cartoon art." K. Marantz, emeritus, Kent State Univeristy
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See also https://osucartoons.pastperfectonline.com/
Chicago Public Art Group The mission of the Chicago Public Art Group is to "unite artists and communities in partnership to produce quality public art and to extend and transform the tradition of collaborative, community involved, public artwork." What kind of public art do they produce? There are two ways site visitors can find out: the first is via the Public Art Map and the second is via the Community Public Art Guide.
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The map of Chicagoland has locations pinpointed that can be scrolled over, revealing a photo of the artwork, its location, the lead artist, the date of its creation and a brief explanation of the artwork. The Community Public Art Guide not only has pictures of the murals, mosaics, sculptures and spaces that have been created by artists associated with the Chicago Public Art Group, but also has extensive explanation, along with examples, of composition, techniques of community art, and portfolios divided up by date ranges. The Group's latest work, Come to Light, a stunning multi-media mosaic, should click on the link of the same name, under the "What We Do" tab. [KMG]
Documents of 20th Century Latin American and Latino Art Documents about the art and artists of Latin America and about Hispanic American art in the US. A CHOICE review by K. Cleland-Sipfle, Southern Oregon University, commends the site's country coverage for Mexico, Argentina, the US, and Brazil.
International Foundation for Art Research "Provides an attractive, well-designed Web site offering access to many critical tools art researchers need to ensure the integrrity of purchases and exhibitions." C. Bombaro (CHOICE)
Joseph Cornell: Navigating the Imagination This site supports a traveling exhibition and catalog of the same name, initiated by the Peabody essex Museum in Salem, MA.
MetPublications, from the Metropolitan Museum of Art Over 400 exhibition or collection catalogues may be read online or as PDF downloads. Many available titles are out of print. Each title includes an Additional Resources tab, with images from the collection and Heilbrunn Timeline articles.
New York Art Resources Consortium The New York Art Resources Consortium (NYARC) comprises the research libraries of three New York City art museums: The Brooklyn Museum, The Frick Collection, and The Museum of Modern Art. The stated aim of the consortium is to facilitate a collaboration that can provide greater access to research materials for the arts. The NYARC website functions as a portal to a number of important resources. It provides access to the Arcade online catalog that unites the collections of the three member museum libraries.
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In addition, NYARC includes access to a growing number of digital collections. A recent addition is the Frick Digital Image Archive, which links images of 15,000 works of art captured during the Frick's 1922-67 photography expeditions throughout the US to the documentation available in Arcade.
Outdoor Advertising Association of America (OAAA) Archives, 1885-1990s This digital collection from the Duke University Libraries contains over 16,000 images which tell the modern history of the outdoor advertising industry in the United States. Visitors can browse the collection by company, product, date, place, subject, tone, or placement company. Browsing by product is a good way to get started here, and some of the more creative advertisements can be found in the "TWA airlines" and "gasoline" sections. [excerpted from KMG]
Perseus Digital Library
Perseus started by covering the history, literature and culture of the Greco-Roman world and has expanded to include an Art and Artifact finder, and collections of texts from the Renaissance, 19th century American, and Germanic texts in Old Norse, English, and Icelandic
Photogravure [Flash Player] This gorgeous website is described as a "comprehensive resource dedicated to the photogravure." Its aim is to showcase the beauty and craftsmanship involved in the photographic process of photogravure. The "History" tab, found on the menu across the top of the page, provides visitors with a very thorough history "of the relationship between the evolution of photogravure, and the art of photography." Visitors should not miss the stunning Alfred Stieglitz photogravure, A "Venetian Canal."
Typedia: A Shared Encyclopedia of Typeface Typedia is a community-based website with the mission of classifying typefaces and providing public information and forums for discussion. This participatory website encourages users to create an account to save favorite typefaces and view a list of their contributions and forum posts. A static banner on each page provides a site search bar and log-in to a user account.
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This site will be a valuable resource for students and faculty in graphic design, web development, and the book arts. Summing Up: Recommended. D. A. Berona, Plymouth State University, New Hampshire (From CHOICE reviews).
Vincent vanGogh: The Letters A digital compilation of all known letters written to or by Vincent van Gogh from 1852 to 1890. The majority represent correspondence between Vincent and his brother, Theo. The letters are arranged by period, correspondent, place where the letter was written, and those containing sketches. Each letter can be viewed in translation or as a facsimile of the original.
Virtual Museum of Japanese Arts This website of traditional Japanese treasures & culture was produced for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan, It is a virtual museum that includes physical objects & other more intangible items of cultural patrimony, such as fighting styles and performance art. Visitors can scroll over any of the seven "galleries" to read a description of what types of work are contained within.
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The "Fine Arts" gallery is defined as those visual arts primarily concerned with the creation of beauty, such as architecture and gardens, painting, sculpture, and Ukiyoe. Upon choosing a section of the gallery, visitors can click on it, see examples of the art form, and read about the history of these traditions. (KMG for Scout Report)
Web Resources for American Art A comprehensive index of American art Web resources compiled by the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, this list focuses on sites related to American art before 1945. See also https://art.nelson-atkins.org/collections and https://www.ahaaonline.org/

General Web Resources

ArchNet An open access library for teaching and learning about the built environment of Muslim societies.
Art in the 21st Century (PBS) The official PBS Website for the series "Art in the 21st Century." Many excellent links to artists, films, events, etc.
Art and Architecture This website was created by the Courtauld Institute of Art, a British institute created for the study of Western art. The website contains over 40,000 images and a network of over 500,000 links. Because of the vast amount of content, visitors might find it helpful to first check out the link at the bottom of the page, entitled "About A&A". From there, click on the "How to Use the Art & Architecture Web Site".
Artcyclopedia Encyclopedic source useful for browsing artists by their names, mediums, subjects, nationalities and genders.
Arthistoricum.net: Virtual Library for Art History "A portal to library catalogues, image databases, electronic publication, and Web resources for art history researchers/educators ... site's ambitious goal is to provide a comprehensive record of publications in art history and to furnish links to a growing body of electronic publications ranging from current scholarship to historically significant criticism and primary resources." (from M.L. Murray, St. Thomas Aquinas College)
Art History Research Centre The AHRC is the first and foremost tool for art historical research on the internet. It shares key resources and methods of online research so that art historians can find the resources relevant to their work.
Art History Resources on the Web EwArt Productions gives you fact-filled and entertaining coverage of works of art, artists, and concepts, all "in just a minute."
Art History Teaching Resources Funded by the Samuel H. Kress Foundation and the CUNY Graduate Center, Art History Teaching Resources (AHTR) describes itself as a “peer-populated platform for art history teachers.” The site incorporates resources such as lesson plans for survey and thematic courses, syllabi, assignments, rubrics, suggestions for museum visits and writing about art, plus a section devoted to advanced-placement AP art history courses. It also features the AHTR Weekly, an online newsletter published since 2012, and a Tweets column. Plans are to launch a scholarship-of-teaching ejournal called Art History Pedagogy & Practice in late 2016. The editorial staff includes academic and museum professionals, with contributions from a growing community of teachers, curators, and art experts. The lesson plans are nicely organized with basic definitions, a list of resources, a selection of visual materials, some content notes, and suggestions for assignments. The survey lessons are basic, with references pointing mainly to free materials hosted at Smarthistory (CH, 47-1815) and the Khan Academy. The thematic lessons offer greater challenges in their selection of resources, and future growth in this section will enhance the site’s value for coursework above the survey level. AP art history and art appreciation instructors as well as those teaching art history surveys at the college level will want to bookmark this site and visit it regularly. It provides a very helpful basic framework for those in their first years of teaching who are juggling the development of content simultaneously with refining their methodology. It also invites contributions from members of the art history teaching community and contributes to continuing professional education. Having access to such a resource helps mitigate the fact that at many institutions, art historians frequently work in isolation without colleagues in their field. A good resource, designed for growth and diversification and the potential to address the needs of undergraduate art history teaching above the survey level. M. Nilsen, IU South Bend
Art Images for College Teaching Photographs of art and architecture around the world with an emphasis on ancient, medieval, and Renaissance European works.
ArtLex - Art Dictionary Search engine with definitions for more than 3,600 terms used in discussing art / visual culture, along with thousands of supporting images, pronunciation notes, great quotations and cross-references.
Art Project Powered by Google Art Project applies Google's Street View technology to the experience of visiting a museum. Google has partnered with (for now) 17 of the world's top museums, including the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, Italy; the National Gallery in London; and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Visitors may navigate the site by selecting a particular museum from the home page.
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They can then virtually explore the museum by walking through the galleries and selecting particular artworks to view more closely. Additionally, one or more images from each museum may be viewed at an extremely high resolution (between 7 billion and 14 billion pixels), an option that allows viewers to examine texture and see individual brushstrokes, for instance. An article that explains more is at https://www.digitalmeetsculture.net/article/the-google-art-project/
ArtsConnected Art education teachers and those majoring in art education will definitely find this website useful for their work. The ArtsConnected website combines the collections of the Minneapolis Institute of Arts and the Walker Art Center. There are over 100,000 images, texts, audio, video, and interactive resources available to visitors to the site. A newly added feature is "Ask an Educator", which allows users to ask questions of the museum educators at both the Institute and the Walker Art Center.
Arts Council Collection Descriptive information (usually including images) for 7,500 works of modern and contemporary British art.
ArtsJournal: Daily Art News Founded in 1999, the ArtsJournal site provides a digest of arts and cultural journalism in the English-speaking world, with links to stories in 200+ free access newspapers, magazines, and publications. Topics covered include: issues, dance, ideas, media, music, people, publishing, theater, and visual... (from M. Nilsen)
The Artsnet
AskART Resourde for art appraisals, art for sale, auction records and miscellaneous artists.
Covering Photography A Web-based resource for studying the relationship between photographic history and book cover design based on the interests of collector Karl Baden. Site includes some 1,500 book covers representing the work of about 350 photographers.
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See https://cte.bc.edu/baden6/ and details and search hints at https://cte.bc.edu/baden6/more
Famous Artists Index The art history index of famous artists and masters offers artwork imagery and in-depth information online, including the biographies of over 22,000 artists.
Interaction-Design.org Interaction-Design.org has the mission of making available free and relevant educational materials in the areas of human-computer interaction and interaction design. The research made available on the overall site deals with human-centered aspects of technology: interaction design, information architecture, usability, user experience, human-computer interaction, information visualization, ethnography, emotional design, social media, and much more.
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This website will be particularly valuable for professionals interested in learning about human-computer interaction and for educators interested in guiding students to excellent, free resources in this area.
Making Sense of Modern Art A guide to the collection of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art which "uses individual works as case studies illustrating themes, styles, and movements recurring throughout the last century." (A.H. Simmons, National Gallery of Art) See https://www.sfmoma.org/press/release/sfmoma-to-unveil-redesigned-web-compatible-making/ Also https://www.sfmoma.org/exhibitions/
Mother of All Art and Art History Links (Michigan School of Art and Design)
See also http://umich.edu/~motherha/resource.html
Olga's Gallery This site features a comprehensive, alphabetical listing of artists and their works from around the world.
Online Books Page: Fine Arts A list of links to free electronic books relating to the Fine Arts (browsing Library of Congress Call Numbers: "N1 .N55" to "N4874 .B3").
Resources for Art and Design North Carolina Art and Design Websites
Smarthistory: A multimedia Web-Book about Art and Art History This Web site, begun by Beth Harris and Steven Zucker, functions as a multimedia art history resource and adjunct to college and art history survey texts. It is based on the philosophy that dialogue can create disagreement without fear, and that the use of videos and podcasts allows students to concentrate on the image, rather than go back and forth between text and image.
Timeline of Art History Provides an overview of the history of art as illustrated and represented in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Select works of art, chronology, or essays tab.
VADS: The Visual Arts Data Service VADS includes over 100,000 images from collections around Britain, to be used for education and research. Users may search via basic and advanced options, and browse impages by theme or by collection.
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Site formerly http://vads.ahds.ac.uk/index.php
Web gallery of art Virtual museum and searchable database of European painting and sculpture of the Gothic, Renaissance, Baroque, Neoclassicism and Romanticism periods (1100-1850), currently containing over 18.400 reproductions.
WikiArt - Visual Art Encyclopedia A visual encyclopedia of fine arts.The project aims to create high-quality, most complete and well-structured online repository of fine art. WikiArt.org allows unlimited copying, distributing and displaying of the images of public domain artworks solely.

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Museum and Archives on the Web

Specialized Sites of Interest

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