OWHL Guides: Art Guide: Finding Images & Inspiration

Art & Museum Websites

Addison Gallery of American Art
The Addison Gallery's permanent collection includes significant paintings, prints, works on paper, sculpture, decorative arts, and photography by generations of American artists from Colonial times to the present.
Artcyclopedia
This site provides an index to 1,200 sites related to the arts, offering more than 32,000 links to works by 7,500 artists. The focus is on painting and sculpture, but also includes a variety of other formats. Works may be browsed or searched by artist, title or museum.
The Art Institute of Chicago
The Art Institute of Chicago was founded as both a museum and school for the fine arts.
Art Museum Image Consortium
This site requires a subscription in order to view much of the content; however, it does make available an extensive "thumbnail catalog" of the artwork from contributing museums. The thumbnails may be searched by keyword, which returns images and catalog descriptions of each piece.
Bridgeman Images
Founded in 1972, Bridgeman Images works with museums, galleries, collections and artists to provide a central resource of fine art and archive footage for reproduction to creative professionals. Every subject, concept, style and medium is represented, from the masterpieces of national museums to the hidden treasures of private collections.
British Museum
The Currier Museum of Art (Manchester, NH)
The Currier Museum of Art is an internationally renowned art museum located in Manchester, New Hampshire. The Currier features European and American paintings, decorative arts, photographs and sculpture, including works by Picasso, Monet, O'Keeffe, Wyeth and LeWitt.
Early Americas Digital Archive
From the University of Maryland, a collection of electronic primary texts concerning the Americas written between 1492 and 1820.
German Propaganda Archive
From Calvin College, this site includes examples of all types of Nazi propaganda.
Google Art Project
Discover diverse art from around the world.
The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden
The Smithsonian’s Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden is a voice for contemporary art and culture and provides a national platform for the art and artists of our time.
The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum
The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum's preeminent collection contains more than 2,500 paintings, sculptures, tapestries, furniture, manuscripts, rare books and decorative arts. The galleries house works by some of the most recognized artists in the world, including Titian, Rembrandt, Michelangelo, Raphael, Botticelli, Manet, Degas, Whistler and Sargent.
The Iziko South African National Gallery (Cape Town, South Africa)
South Africa's premier art museum houses outstanding collections of South African, African, British, French, Dutch and Flemish art.
The Louvre (Paris, France)
Formerly a royal palace, the Louvre has embraced the history of France for eight centuries. Intended as a universal museum since its inception in 1793, its collections span several thousands of years and a territory that extends from America to the confines of Asia. Divided among eight departments, these collections feature works admired throughout the globe, including the Mona Lisa, the Winged Victory of Samothrace, and the Venus de Milo.
Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY
Presents over 5,000 years of art from around the world.
The Museum of Contemporary Art of the University of Sao Paolo (Sao Paolo, Brazil)
A collection of about 10,000 works, including paintings, prints, three-dimensional, photographs, conceptual art, objects and installations. It is considered a reference center for modern and contemporary art, Brazilian and international.
The Museum of Fine Arts (Boston)
The MFA is one of the most comprehensive art museums in the world; the collection encompasses nearly 500,000 works of art. Visitors experience art from ancient Egyptian to contemporary.
Museum of Latin American Art of Buenos Aires (MALBA) (Buenos Aires, Argentina)
Malba is a museum dedicated to Latin American art of the twentieth century has a unique heritage in the world and since its inception dealt with the main trends and movements that characterize the art of the region in all media. It brings together paintings, sculptures, drawings, prints, collages, photographs, installations and objects by artists from Mexico and the Caribbean to Argentina.
The Museum of Modern Art (New York)
A collection of modern and contemporary art, MoMA is dedicated to the conversation between the past and the present, the established and the experimental.
The National Art Museum of China (Beijing, China)
The National Art Museum of China (NAMOC) is a national art museum of plastic arts dedicated to collection, research and exhibitions of modern and contemporary artistic works in China.
The National Gallery (London, England)
The National Gallery houses the national collection of paintings in the Western European tradition from the 13th to the 19th centuries.
National Gallery of Art
The mission of the National Gallery of Art is to serve the United States of America in a national role by preserving, collecting, exhibiting, and fostering the understanding of works of art at the highest possible museum and scholarly standards.
The National Museum (New Dehli, India)
The Museum presently holds approximately 2,00,000 objects of a diverse nature, both Indian as well as foreign, and its holdings cover a time span of more than five thousand years of Indian cultural heritage.
The National Museum of American History
The National Museum of American History collects and preserves more than 3 million artifacts—all true national treasures.
The National Museum of Australia
The Commonwealth of Australia's national cultural institution for the visual arts and is part of the Ministry of the Arts within the Communications and the Arts portfolio.
National Park Service Museum Catalog
This searchable online database provides access to thousands of images and records from the National Park Service (NPS) museum collections.
Neues Museum: Egyptian Art, Treasure of Priam, pre-history
The New Museum is a major work of art, museum and art history of the 19th century. Built according to plans of Friedrich August Stüler 1843-1855, the building suffered during World War II heavy destruction, an emergency backup followed only in the 1980s
Online Collections of the Vatican Museum
The Peabody Essex Museum (Salem, MA)
The Peabody Essex is one of the nation's major museums for Asian art, including Japanese, Chinese, Korean and Indian art, along with the finest collection of Asian Export art extant and 19th-century Asian photography. It presents the earliest collections of Native American and Oceanic art in the nation — all collections of exceptional standing. The historic houses and gardens, and American decorative art and maritime art collections provide an unrivaled spectrum of New England's heritage over 300 years.
The Phillips Collection (Washington, D.C.)
Works of modern art are located at The Phillips Collection which opened to the public in 1921. Paintings by Renoir and Rothko, Bonnard and O'Keeffe, van Gogh and Diebenkorn are among the many impressionist and modern works that fill the museum.
Smart History. Art, History, Conversation
Smarthistory is a leading resource for the study of art and cultural heritage. A collection of videos and essays are designed to be engaging and conversational and cover art that ranges from the paleolithic to the present. Everything on Smarthistory is completely free and content is offered with no advertising. A small non-profit organization based in New York, but we reach millions of learners around the world.
Smithsonian American Art Museum
The Smithsonian American Art Museum, the nation's first collection of American art, is an unparalleled record of the American experience. The collection captures the aspirations, character, and imagination of the American people throughout three centuries.
The State Hermitage Museum (St. Petersburg, Russia)
The collection of the State Hermitage includes over 3 million works of art and world culture artifacts. It contains paintings, graphic works, sculptures, works of applied art, archaeological artifacts and numismatic objects.
Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History (Metropolitan Museum of Art)
This site will provide you with some background info on the artists and works that you choose. Use the “Search the Timeline” box in the upper right-hand corner of the page to find your artist.
The Tokyo Fuji Art Museum (Tokyo, Japan)
Museum’s prized collection comprised of some 30,000 works.
The Victoria and Albert Museum (London, England)
Collections of contemporary and historic art and design. It houses some of the world's greatest resources for architecture, fashion, photography, theatre and performance, sculpture, contemporary design, ceramics, Asian art and design, furniture, textiles, jewellery, metalwork and many more. There is extensive online access to authoritative information and the knowledge of leading experts.
Web Gallery of Art
The Web Gallery of Art is a virtual museum and searchable database of European fine arts from 11th to 19th centuries.

Google Images

Google Images contains a massive amount of art reproductions, photos, and drawings. You can limit an image search to just drawings, clip art, faces, photography, color or balck and white. Be sure to cite the search when using items from Google Images!

Art History on YouTube

There are are a vast number of history videos available on YouTube. Search for a person or particular event to see videos on that topic. Always be sure to evaluate online resources according to the criteria on the Evaluating Resources page in this guide to make sure they are accurate and authoritative!

(You're watching 500 Years of Female Portraits in Western Art)

Music at Clift

Music can be a wonderful source of inspiration. Whether jazz, classical, rock or blues take a look in the online catalog and choose "Phillips Clift" as your location. Below are just a few examples of the CDs available at Clift.

Hungarian dances by Brahms, Johannes, 1833-1897
Call Number: Clift: RED BRA
Moondog by Hardin, Louis.
Call Number: Clift: RED MOO
The Yes album by Yes (Musical group)
Call Number: Clift: ORANGE YES
Publication Date: 2003
Fleetwood Mac by Fleetwood Mac (Musical group)
Call Number: Clift: ORANGE FLE
The L.A. sessions by Sherman, Mark
Call Number: Clift: ORANGE SHE
Publication Date: 2012
Visions of jazz
Call Number: Clift: ORANGE VIS

Art Guide: Finding Images & Inspiration

Databases

Art & Museum Websites

Google Images

Art History on YouTube

Music at Clift