Helpful websites and databases for IB Visual Arts Students:
The Frick Collection Internationally recognized as a premier museum and research center, the Frick is known for its distinguished Old Master paintings and outstanding examples of European sculpture and decorative arts.
Art UK is a charity working to transform access to the nation’s art collections. Their website is the showcase for art in every UK public collection and is an ambitious collaboration between over 3,250 British institutions.
Artsy.net Artsy’s mission is to expand the art market to support more artists and art in the world. They are a platform for collecting and discovering art.
Bibliography of the History of Art (BHA) and Répertoire international de la littérature de l'art (RILA)From the Getty Research Institute BHA and RILA cover European and American visual arts material published between 1975 and 2007.
The British Museum The British Museum’s Collection Online offers everyone unparalleled access to objects in the collection. This innovative database is one of the earliest and most extensive online museum search platforms in the world.
CAMEO: Conservation & Art Materials Encyclopedia Online CAMEO is a searchable information resource developed by the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. The MATERIALS database contains chemical, physical, visual, and analytical information on historic and contemporary materials used in the production and conservation of artistic, architectural, archaeological, and anthropological materials.
Europeana Collections At Europeana, they work with thousands of European archives, libraries and museums to share cultural heritage for enjoyment, education and research. Europeana Collections provides access to over 50 million digitised items – books, music, artworks and more – with sophisticated search and filter tools to help you find what you’re looking for.
Their dedicated thematic collections on art, fashion, music, photography and World War I contain galleries, blogs and exhibitions to inform and inspire.
Getty Research Portal The Getty Research Portal™ is an online search platform providing global access to digitized art history texts in the public domain. Through this multilingual, multicultural union catalog, scholars can search and download complete digital copies of publications for the study of art, architecture, material culture, and related fields. The Portal is free to all users.
The Guggenheim Museum Archive The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum Library contains published resources that reflect and inform museum collections and exhibitions, with particular focus on modern and contemporary art, architecture, and photography. Collections include global Guggenheim exhibition catalogues, rare books, the Hilla Rebay Library, as well as an actively growing collection of artist monographs, art criticism and theory, reference materials, and periodicals.
IRIS Consortium Free Online Library Union Catalog. A library union catalog founded in 1993. It is an association of Florentine area art history and humanities libraries.
Index of Medieval Art from Princeton University holdings include images and descriptive data relating to works of art produced between early apostolic times and the sixteenth century. Although the Index of Medieval Art was formerly known as the Index of Christian Art, the collection now includes secular subjects as well as a growing number of subjects from medieval Jewish and Islamic culture. About half of the total records held in the Index are currently online; back-files and new material are added regularly.
The International Foundation for Art Research (IFAR) is a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit educational and research organization dedicated to integrity in the visual arts. IFAR offers impartial and authoritative information on authenticity, ownership, theft, and other artistic, legal, and ethical issues concerning art objects. IFAR serves as a bridge between the public, and the scholarly and commercial art communities.
Los Angeles County Museum of Art Located on the Pacific Rim, LACMA is the largest art museum in the western United States, with a collection of nearly 140,000 objects that illuminate 6,000 years of artistic expression across the globe. Committed to showcasing a multitude of art histories, LACMA exhibits and interprets works of art from new and unexpected points of view that are informed by the region’s rich cultural heritage and diverse population. LACMA’s spirit of experimentation is reflected in its work with artists, technologists, and thought leaders as well as in its regional, national, and global partnerships to share collections and programs, create pioneering initiatives, and engage new audiences.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art When The Met was founded in 1870, it owned not a single work of art. Through the combined efforts of generations of curators, researchers, and collectors, their collection has grown to represent more than 5,000 years of art from across the globe—from the first cities of the ancient world to the works of our time.
Google Art and Culture is a non-commercial initiative. We work with cultural institutions and artists around the world. Together, our mission is to preserve and bring the world’s art and culture online so it’s accessible to anyone, anywhere.
Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) Their evolving collection contains almost 200,000 works of modern and contemporary art. More than 80,000 works are currently available online.
The Museum of New Zealand has recently made over 30,000 images available for download and re-use in high resolution as a part of its Collections Online library. It’s best to search this page after first checking the “with downloadable images” check box so that you only get results that are free for download. Each image specifies its license, many of which are remixable and have no copyright associated with them at all.
National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has hi-res image collections available both on their website and on Flickr. Here you can find images of the Mars Utopian Plain, the moon landing, astronauts, space shuttles, and so much more. NASA images are generally not copyrighted.
The National Archives and Records Administration offers a fantastic library of photographic images including photos of Churchill and Roosevelt, Nixon and Elvis, JFK and Jackie, World War II photos, and many many more historical photos. You can find many of them through the above-linked online exhibits page, while others are available on their Flickr page, and thousands more can be found within their Online Catalogue. All of the U.S. National Archives’ images that are part of The Flickr Commons are marked “no known copyright restrictions.” As for the rest of the site; “generally, materials produced by Federal agencies are in the public domain and may be reproduced without permission.”
National Gallery of Art With the launch of NGA Images, the National Gallery of Art implements an open access policy for digital images of works of art that the Gallery believes to be in the public domain. Images of these works are now available free of charge for any use, commercial or non-commercial. Users do not need to contact the Gallery for authorization to use these images. They are available for download at the NGA Images website (images.nga.gov).
The Smart Museum of Art As the fine arts museum of the University of Chicago, the Smart is home to thought-provoking exhibitions and an exquisite collection of more than 15,000 objects, including modern masterpieces, millennia-old Chinese artworks, rich examples of European painting, and provocative works of contemporary art.