Research Guides: Art and Art History: Finding Images & Media

Find images

ARTstor
A database of over 1.9 million high quality images and the number is constantly growing. Curated from museums and personal collections for pedagogical use.

ARTSTOR: A digital library of images in the areas of art, architecture, humanities, and social sciences with a set of tools to view, present, and manage the images. For full use of all functionality in Artstor, users will need to create a personal account.

ARTSTOR is being retired on May 1, 2024. All of the resources in ARTSTOR have been migrated to JSTOR.

Guide for working in JSTOR here: https://guides.jstor.org/images

Information about the migration: https://www.jstor.org/artstor

Art & Archaeology Artifact Browser
Collection of images and descriptions about ancient Greco-Roman art and architecture by Tufts University.
Art Images for College Teaching
A collection of royalty free images managed by the University of Michigan
Artsy
Artsy is an online platform for discovering, buying and selling fine art. Artsy's search engine and database draw connections and map relationships among works of art, powered by the Art Genome Project.
Digital Public Library of America
The Digital Public Library of America works with a national network of partners to make millions of materials from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions across the country available to all in a one-stop discovery experience.

Online videos

Academic Video Online (AVON) This link opens in a new window
Large collection of documentaries and feature films.
https://salve.libguides.com/avon
World History in Video This link opens in a new window
A collection of streaming video documentaries about history.
http://salve.libguides.com/world_history_video

Museum Collections

Carnegie Museum of Art Collection
Online images of much of their collection. Includes brief information.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Search the collection of digital images and browse collection highlights.
Archives of American Art
With over 20 million items in its continually growing collections, the Archives is the world’s largest and most widely used resource dedicated to collecting and preserving the papers and primary records of the visual arts in America.
Smithsonian Institute Collection Search
Search over 8.59 million catalog records of museum objects, and library & archives materials. More than 963,000 of these records contain online images, video and sound files, electronic journals and other online resources.
National of Gallery of Art
Explore thousands of the most significant works of art from the Renaissance to the present day. The growing collection includes European and American masterpieces in every medium.
The Art Institute of Chicago
Explore thousands of artworks in the museum’s wide-ranging collection—from [their] world-renowned icons to lesser-known gems from every corner of the globe—as well as [their] books, writings, reference materials, and other resources.

Multimedia

SmartHistory
Smarthistory.org is a free, not-for-profit, multi-media web-book designed as a dynamic enhancement (or even substitute) for the traditional art history textbook. They have created audios and videos about works of art found in standard art history survey texts, organized the files stylistically and chronologically, and added text and still images.