Research Guides: Visual Arts Subject Guide: Find images

Artstor

Artstor is an invaluable image resource comprising over 2.5 million images across 300 collections.

Two major reasons why Artstor is better than Google Images:

Every image comes with high-quality descriptions and other information from the collection cataloguers, curators, institutions, and artists themselves
No copyright concerns when using the images for education and research, because all images in Artstor have been rights-cleared for such purposes

Images are also extremely high-quality, allowing you to zoom in and examine the fine detail of art objects.

Register for an Artstor account

To get the most out of Artstor, register for a free Artstor account. This will allow you to download images, save them to groups, create presentations, and share them with other Artstor users.

Below is the link to access Artstor extracted from the Library's A-Z list of databases:

Artstor This link opens in a new window
An image database featuring a wide range of images from some of the world's leading museums, photo archives, scholars, and artists. It covers many time periods and cultures, and documents the fields of architecture, painting, sculpture, photography, decorative arts, design, anthropology, ethnographic and women studies, as well as many other forms of visual culture.
Dates covered: Various
Concurrent users: Unlimited
Provider: ITHAKA

Other image databases

Apart from Artstor, here are some other other Library databases that are useful for finding images:

Artstor This link opens in a new window
An image database featuring a wide range of images from some of the world's leading museums, photo archives, scholars, and artists. It covers many time periods and cultures, and documents the fields of architecture, painting, sculpture, photography, decorative arts, design, anthropology, ethnographic and women studies, as well as many other forms of visual culture. All images are accompanied by comprehensive metadata and are rights-cleared for educational use.

NOTE: Require to register Artstor account for downloading images.
Dates covered: Various
Concurrent users: Unlimited
Provider: ITHAKA
Bridgeman Art Library Archive This link opens in a new window
The world's leading source of fine art images.
Dates covered:: Varied
Concurrent users: Unlimited
Provider: Credo Reference
National Geographic Magazine Archive This link opens in a new window
Provides access to the full text of the National Geographic magazine archive. Topics include history, nature, anthropology, and more.
Dates covered: 1888 - 1994
Concurrent users: Unlimited
Provider: Cengage Gale
Full-text: Yes
Picture Post Historical Archive, 1938-1957 This link opens in a new window
A complete digital archive of the Picture Post, the iconic newspaper published in Britain from 1938-1957 that defined the style of photojournalism in the 20th century. It provides snapshots of the daily life of ordinary people, as well as moments of historical importance in domestic and international affairs.
Dates covered: 1938 - 1957
Concurrent users: Unlimited
Provider: Cengage Gale
Full text: Yes