Macdonald-Kelce Library: Art, Design, and Art History: Images

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Image Databases

A list of just some of the many and growing institutional digital collections online. Start your image searches here.

Log into MyUTampa to access ARTstor and the Vogue Archive

See below to learn how to cite images in your paper or presentation. For more information about intellectual property rights surrounding the use of images and further digital collection resources, explore the College Art Association site.

Image: Magazine fashion plate - Falbalas et Fanfreluches: almanach des modes présentes, passées & futures pour 1922: Le Jour et la Nuit / France XXe siècle. http://hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.501584

ARTstor This link opens in a new window
Provides a rich, digital image library covering the areas of art, architecture and archeology.
Vogue Archive This link opens in a new window
Archive of the entire run of the U.S. edition of Vogue magazine featuring color page images, covers, advertisements, and fold-outs.
Searchable by garment type, designers, stylists, and photographers dating from their first issue in 1892 to present.

Artsy
This art platform aims to mirror music and other recommendation based sites through what they call the "Art Genome Project," a growing data-set of categories that connect artworks for serendipitous exploration. See where particular works of art are housed and explore the art market.
Art UK
This site enables global audiences to learn about the UK’s national art collection. It features art in every UK public collection and is a collaboration between over 3,200 British institutions.
British Library Catalogue of Illuminated Manuscripts
Search images of medieval and Renaissance manuscripts in the British Library, one of the richest collections in the world.
CAA list of Free Images for Academic/Scholarly Use
Collections that students can use for academic purposes, mostly from museums. Scroll down for the website list.
Creative Commons Search
Creative Commons offers access to search services provided by other independent organizations such as Flickr and Wikimedia Commons.
Digital Scriptorium
The Digital Scriptorium is a growing image database of medieval and renaissance manuscripts that unites scattered resources (digital archives) from many institutions into an international tool for teaching and scholarly research.
Europeana
Explore millions of artworks, artifacts, books, films and music from European museums, galleries, libraries and archives.
Getty's Open Content Database
The Getty makes available, without charge, all available digital images to which the Getty holds the rights or that are in the public domain to be used for any purpose. No permission is required.
Google Art Project
An aggregate of many art collections from museums around the world set in a dynamic user friendly platform. View or create shared personal collections for research and inspiration.
The Index of Medieval Art (Princeton University)
The Index includes images and descriptive data related to the iconography of works of art produced between late Antiquity and the sixteenth century. As of July 1, 2023, a paid subscription will no longer be required for access.
LACMA Collections
LACMA offers 20,000 high-quality unrestricted images of art from their collection, and are available for everyone to download and use freely.
Library of Congress Prints & Photographs Online Catalogue
The PPOC Collection offers over 1.2 million digitized images, drawn from primarily American history, including photographs, fine and popular prints and drawings, posters, and architectural and engineering drawings.
Look and Learn History Picture Archive
This collection aggregates free to use hi-res public domain images selected from major public collections.
LUX: Yale Collections Discovery
Yale's new research platform that provides single-point access to all the collections in the Yale Center for British Art (YCBA), the Yale University Art Gallery, the Yale Peabody Museum, and Yale University Library.
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Refine by "Has Digital Image" to access images online.
Metropolitan Museum of Art (MET)
All images of public-domain artworks in the MET's collection are now available for free and unrestricted use.
New York Public Library (NYPL) Digital Collections
Free, public domain access to download and use more than 180,000 high resolution images in this collection of more than 700,000 digitized images. All are available for educational use.
NGA Images, National Gallery of Art
NGA Images is a repository of open access digital images of the collections of the National Gallery of Art. 29,000 images are available for non-commercial use.
Online Museum Resources on Asian Art (Columbia University)
OMuRAA identifies online visual resources having to do with Asian Art-- including collections databases, digital image libraries, archived websites of special exhibitions, online presentations of focused collections, and websites for teaching with and about art - and indexes them in ways that are familiar to teachers and students in world history, world literature, and general art courses.
Paris Museums
Access many images and virtual exhibits of 14 major museums in Paris.
Rijksmuseum
Thousands of high resolution digital images free to use and manipulate courtesy of the Rijksmuseum collections.
Smithsonian Archives of American Art Image Gallery
The image gallery contains over 8,000 photographs, letters, sketches, diaries, and other documents which have been scanned and individually described. Small resolution images are available without watermark for educational use. For even more see Smithsonian Open Access.
Visual Arts Data Service (VADS)
VADS is the online resource for visual arts offering a portfolio of visual art collections of over 100,000 images that are freely available and copyright cleared for use in learning, teaching and research in the UK.
Wellcome Collection
Find thousands of Creative Commons licensed images from historical library materials and museum objects to contemporary digital photographs, courtesy of the Wellcome Collection, a free museum and library in London.

How to cite images

Each style format (MLA, Chicago, APA, etc.) has it's own specific way of citing an image. When you are including an image in your paper or presentation, no matter where you got the image from, you need to cite your source as you would if you were taking a quote out of a book, article, or website.

How to cite images in:

Chicago (search for "citing illustrations")

MLA (scroll down to "A Painting, Sculpture, or Photograph")

APA (there is no “official” APA citation style for paintings or other works of art, but the APA Style Blog recently addressed this question in a blog post.)

Rule of thumb: if you are confused about formatting, make sure to include all pieces of information to the best of your ability (title, author, date, repository or database, museum/institution or other website you got the image from, copyright info)

Copyright considerations for using images in your published papers or presentations:

US Copyright Office: How to Investigate the Copyright Status of a Work (PDF)

Copyright Term and the Public Domain in the United States (Cornell Chart)

Code Of Best Practices In Fair Use In the Visual Arts

Digital Image Rights Computator (DIRC) - Developed by the Visual Resources Association, the Digital Image Rights Computator assists the user to assess the intellectual property status of a specific image documenting a work of art, a designed object, or a portion of the built environment so that the user can make informed decisions regarding the intended educational uses of that image.