Visual Arts: Art & Art History

Search the library catalog

Search library databases (CCC login required):

• Archives of American Art at the Smithsonian Institute
• Art and Architecture Thesaurus Online
• The Art Institute's Digital Publications
• Art Journal Open "presents artists’ projects, conversations and interviews, scholarly essays, and other forms of content. ... Contributions focus on post-1945 material with an emphasis on the contemporary, (and as) an online publication ... prioritizes material that makes meaningful use of the web." 
• Bibliography of Artist Dictionaries and Other Sources from the Smithsonian American Art Museum 
• The Bibliography of the History of Art (BHA) and Répertoire international de la littérature de l'art (RILA) "cover European and American visual arts material published between 1975 and 2007."
• Chicago Public Library
• The Guggenheim Museum archive on Archive.org provides access to over 200 complete books
• Access the Gutenberg Bible and Leonardo da Vinci's Notebook from the British Museum
• Hathi Trust Digital Library "(offers) a collection of millions of titles digitized from (academic & research institutions) around the world."
• The Metropolitan Museum of Art's Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History "pairs essays and works of art with chronologies, telling the story of art and global culture through the Museum’s collection."
• The Linda Nochlin Papers at the Archives of American Art contains the papers of this "feminist art historian and educator ..., (dating) from circa 1876, 1937 to 2017," including "biographical materials; ... correspondence; ... material on Gustave Courbet ..., bathers and the body, essays and lectures," and much more.
• Illuminated Manuscripts from Medieval England and France, 700-1200 features a curated selection of 800 digitized medieval manuscripts, "set in their cultural and historical context and explored in a range of articles." The complete manuscripts are included on the website France et Angleterre: manuscrits médiévaux entre 700 et 1200, "where you can view (them) side by side, and (search) by date, language, place of origin, author or subject."
• MetPublications provides access to "five decades of Met publications on art history, available to read, download, and/or search for free," including full-length books.
• MoMA Glossary of Art Terms
• Newberry Library: Chicago's Independent Research Library since 1887
• The Ryerson and Burnham Libraries at the Art Institute of Chicago
• Smarthistory "is a non-profit collaboration that brings (world-class resources on art and cultural objects from) art's global history to everyone" through videos, essays, and more.
• Tate Online Glossary of Art Terms
• Wikimedia Commons is "a collection of ... freely usable media files"

• CC Search: Search for free content in the public domain and under Creative Commons licenses. Learn more about CC licenses here.
• Some major institutions provide free access to images of works in the public domain, for non-commercial use: 
  • Artstor provides free access to over 570 public collections
  • The British Library on Flickr
  • The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) *next to the search box be sure to check "Show public domain images only"
  • Open Access image search from the Metropolitan Museum of Art
  • Open Content Archive from the Getty 
  • NGA Images from the National Gallery of Art
  • Paris Museums / Paris Musées
  • RijksStudio from the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam

Copyright "is a form of protection grounded in the U.S. Constitution and granted by law for original works of authorship fixed in a tangible medium of expression. Copyright covers both published and unpublished works." Learn more here. 

Fair Use allows "the unlicensed use of copyright-protected works in certain circumstances." Learn more here.

Creative Commons licenses make creative works "freely available for legal use, sharing, repurposing, and remixing" by "any member of the public." The CC Search search engine lets you "search for free content in the public domain and under Creative Commons licenses. Learn more about CC licenses here."

More information:

The MLA, Chicago, and Turabian citation styles may be used in writing about art. Check your syllabus or contact your professor to find out which style they prefer.

Quick guides to citing images: 

• Citing images found online in MLA, APA, and Chicago/Turabian - from Simon Fraser University

College Art Association Guidelines regarding Fair Use and Copyright:

• Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for the Visual Arts, CAA
• Know Your Copyrights, Association of Research Libraries
• Copyrights and Permissions in Scholarly and Educational Publishing
• Guide to the New York Print and Photograph Law
• Fine Art Print Publication Guidelines for Artists
• Quick Guide to Artists’ Rights under the 1977 Copyright Law
• Promotion of Distance Education through Digital Technologies

• Chicago Artists Coalition and Chicago Artists Resource (CAR)
• College Art Association (CAA)
• Student Clubs and Groups at Harold Washington College

• Chicago Gallery News lists galleries "by geographic districts throughout the city of Chicago, suburbs and neighboring states."
• TimeOut Chicago lists their favorites (Jan. 2018)

• Art Institute of Chicago [visit info]
• The Arts Club of Chicago [visit info]
• Block Museum of Art [visit info]
• DePaul Art Museum [visit info]
• Heritage Museum of Asian Art [visit info]
• Intuit: The Center for Intuitive and Outsider Art [visit info]
• Loyola University Museum of Art [visit info]
• Museum of Contemporary Art [visit info]
• National Museum of Mexican Art [visit info on home page]
• National Veterans Art Museum [visit info]
• The Oriental Institute Museum & Exhibits [visit info]
• The Renaissance Society [visit info]
• Smart Museum of Art [visit info]

Circulation Desk: (312) 553-5760
Reference Desk: (312) 553-5784