LibGuides: Finding Images Online: Getting Started

Reference Librarian

Julia Wilbers

Email Me

Contact:

LRC
4601 Mid Rivers Mall Drive
Cottleville, MO 63376

636.922.8620

Library Databases

The library provides you with two databases that offer access to images of artwork from all over the world.

ARTstor is more comprehensive because it is exclusively focused on compiling images.

Oxford Art Online is primarily focused on providing articles on various artists, works or art, art movements, and art terminology BUT it also includes images of art. While the collection of images is nowhere near as robust as ARTstor it's still worthwhile to check out. Please take the time to explore this database for background on a particular artist, movements, and/or techniques.

ARTstor This link opens in a new window
Digital library of over 300,000 images and related data. View, zoom and compare images.
Oxford Art Online This link opens in a new window
Articles on all aspects of art and art history including artist biographies and links to art images. All full-text.

Finding Open Access and Free Images

If you're looking for Open Access images, including things with Creative Commons licenses or work in the Public Domain, check out the following:

Unsplash
"All photos published on Unsplash can be used for free. You can use them for commercial and noncommercial purposes. You do not need to ask permission from or provide credit to the photographer or Unsplash, although it is appreciated when possible."
Pixabay
"Pixabay is a vibrant community of creatives, sharing copyright free images and videos. All contents are released under the Pixabay License, which makes them safe to use without asking for permission or giving credit to the artist - even for commercial purposes."
Burst
"You’re welcome to edit, crop or otherwise modify these images however you see fit. The goal of our library is to help as many people as possible, so all of our pictures are royalty-free, with no attribution required. That means you can use them in your school projects, client work, print ads, menus, on websites and beyond."
MorgueFile
"a community-based free photo site, and all photos found in the Morguefile archive are free for you to download and re-use in your work, be it commercial or not."
British Museum
"Most images that are © The Trustees of the British Museum are available under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)(Opens in new window) licence."
The Met Collection
Listed above but this link goes directly to the Open Access filter.
"On February 7, 2017, The Met made all images of public-domain works in its collection available under Creative Commons Zero (CC0)"
Nappy
"All photos posted on nappy are licensed under the Creative Commons Zero (CC0) license so feel free to do your thing. That means you can download these photos, modify them, share them, distribute them, or use them for whatever you want for free. In fact, we encourage it. The more you use them, the more we’re helping improve the representation of black and brown people in media."
Pexels
"Pexels is a free stock photo and video website and app that helps designers, bloggers, and everyone who is looking for visuals to find great photos and videos that can be downloaded and used for free."
Library of Congress: Free to Use and Reuse
"This page features items from the Library's digital collections that are free to use and reuse. The Library believes that this content is either in the public domain, has no known copyright, or has been cleared by the copyright owner for public use."
Smithsonian Open Access
" you can download, share, and reuse millions of the Smithsonian’s images—right now, without asking... This includes images and data from across the Smithsonian’s 19 museums, nine research centers, libraries, archives, and the National Zoo."

Finding Artwork Online

Beyond our databases there are lots of other places you can go to find images of art. Here's just a taste!

St. Louis Art Museum
"The Saint Louis Art Museum’s collection includes more than 34,000 objects spanning 5,000 years of history and cultures. More than 5,000 objects are currently searchable online."
National Gallery of Art | Images
"NGA Images is a repository of digital images of the collections of the National Gallery of Art."
The Met Collection
"The Met collection represents more than 5000 years of art from across the globe—from the first cities of the ancient world to works being created today."
Tate Museum
The Tate Museum has great resources about works of art and artists. Have fun exploring.
Be sure to check out their easy-to-understand "art terms" section: https://www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms
Google | Arts & Culture
"Bringing the world’s art and culture online for everyone."
Wikimedia Commons
"A media file repository making available public domain and freely-licensed educational media content (images, sound and video clips) to everyone."
The Louvre
"Access the entire collection of works for free, whether they are on display in the museum, on loan, even long-term, or in storage"