Visual Arts: Drawing & Illustration

• CCC Library Resources
• Other Resources
• Drawing
• Illustration
• Illuminated Mansucripts

Search the library catalog for books on drawing at HWC Library

Search library databases (CCC login required):

• Academic Search Complete
• Arts Collection in Gale Virtual Reference Library
• JSTOR
• New York Times since 1980​

• Archives of American Art at the Smithsonian Institute
• Art and Architecture Thesaurus Online
• 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."
• 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"

Search: Drawing in the Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History

Drawing in the Middle Ages in the Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History

Renaissance Drawings: Material and Function in the Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History

Keith Haring, Subway Drawings from smarthistory

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

ARTSTOR's guides to Using Images and Copyright, including Citing Sources

College Art Association Guidelines regarding Fair Use and Copyright:

• Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for the Visual Arts, CAA
• Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Academic and Research Libraries, 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
• Visual Resources Association: Statement on the Fair Use of Images for Teaching, Research, and Study

Fair Use Evaluator

Statement on Fair Use from the Visual Resources Association

Search: Illustration in the Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History

Japanese Illustrated Handscrolls in the Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History

Illustration from the Akbarnama from smarthistory

Illuminated Manuscripts are "handwritten books with painted decoration that generally includes precious metals such as gold and silver."

The Book of Kells

View the complete digitized Book of Kells HERE 

• 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

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Reference Desk: (312) 553-5784

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