LibGuides: Theatre: Visual Research

Page Contents

Online Image Resources

Large repositories of art images

ARTstor
Searchable database of digital images and associated catalog data, with new image collections added several times a year. ARTstor covers many time periods and cultures, and documents the fields of architecture, painting, sculpture, photography, decorative arts, design, anthropology, ethnographic and women's studies, as well as many other forms of visual culture. Users can search, view, download and organize images.

Digital Public Library of America
Contains millions of items - photographs, manuscripts, books, sounds, moving images, and more—from libraries, archives, and museums around the United States. Users can browse and search the DPLA’s collections by timeline, map, format, and topic; save items to customized lists; and share their lists with others.
Europeana Collections
Europeana is a single access point to millions of books, paintings, films, museum objects and archival records that have been digitised throughout Europe. It is an authoritative source of information coming from European cultural and scientific institutions.
LIFE Photo Archive
Search millions of photographs from the LIFE photo archive, stretching from the 1750s to today.
Wikimedia Commons
Wikimedia Commons is a media file repository making available public domain and freely-licensed educational media content (images, sound and video clips) to everyone, in their own language. It acts as a common repository for the various projects of the Wikimedia Foundation, but you do not need to belong to one of those projects to use media hosted here.

Select museum collections

Digital museum collections are a great place to find high-quality reproductions of works of art, as well as all the information you need to properly caption your images. Below you will find a selection of museums (and a couple of libraries too), which have strong digital collections online.

Museum of Modern Art (MoMA)
An evolving collection contains almost 200,000 works of modern and
contemporary art. More than 77,000 works are currently available online.
NYPL Digital Collections
A living database of items digitized from the New York Public Library’s collections. New materials are added every day, among them prints, photographs, maps, manuscripts, and streaming video. You can search images (with filters for date, genre, and other key features), or browse by collection.
National Gallery of Art
Search the entire National Gallery of Art collection by artist's last name, key words in the title, key words in object information, credit line, provenance name, accession number, exhibition history, and/or catalogue raisonné. You will be able to filter your search results by medium, nationality, time span, styles, images, and whether an object is on view.
Library of Congress: Prints & Photographs
Includes photographs, fine and popular prints and drawings, posters, and architectural and engineering drawings. While international in scope, the collections are particularly rich in materials produced in, or documenting the history of, the United States and the lives, interests and achievements of the American people.
Metropolitan Museum of Art: Collection
The Met's collections - including over 5,000 years of art from around the globe - are accessible through this online database. You can search by artist or culture, object type or material, geographic location, date or era, and by department. Select "Public Domain Artworks" to limit your search to only those images that are free to use without permission.
Getty Open Content Images
Find selected digitized materials from the Research Institute's collection that are free to view and download. Materials include over 2.5 million digital images of rare and public domain books, photographs, prints, manuscripts, sketchbooks, and archives.
Studio Museum in Harlem
The Studio Museum in Harlem’s permanent collection represents more than 400 artists, spans 200 years of history and includes over 2,200 works of art, including paintings, drawings, sculptures, watercolors, photographs, videos and mixed-media installations.
Whitney Museum of American Art
Explore the Whitney's collection of over 23,000 works, created by more than 3,000 American artists during the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. See work on view in our galleries below, or browse the full collection.

References for Art

These other research guides by Barnard Librarians have more information on research in the arts and archives

Art History
by Meredith Wisner Last Updated Oct 29, 2021 269 views this year
Archival Research at Barnard and Beyond
by Martha Tenney Last Updated Oct 19, 2021 254 views this year
Architecture
by Meredith Wisner Last Updated Oct 29, 2021 436 views this year

These online reference works contain both information about artists and artworks, as well as further resources

Oxford Art Online
Oxford Art Online enables access and cross-search functionality to Grove and Oxford reference content in one location. Provides access to Grove Art Online, Benezit Dictionary of Artists, The Encyclopedia of Aesthetics, The Oxford Companion to Western Art, and The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Art Terms. Includes image partnerships with ARTstor, the British Museum, the Museum of Modern Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Art Images for College Teaching, Art Resource, Artists Rights Society and numerous international art galleries and artists.

On-Campus Image Resources

Avery Library

Columbia's Avery Art & Architecture Library has over 625,000 volumes of art and art-related books. None of Avery's books are allowed to be checked out, which means they'll generally be easily available to browse. Search for Avery's books in CLIO, or browse their stacks

Searching CLIO and Browsing the Stacks

CLIO (Columbia Libraries Information Online) is the online catalog of the Columbia University Libraries, including Barnard Library, but excluding Teachers College and the Law Library.

Catalog Search Tips:

Use catalog records to identify useful subject headings such as Illustrated books or Pictures
Substitute different century numbers, country names, or art movement as needed
Remember you can limit search results to items physically held at Barnard or Avery
Use keyword searches to locate items, and then go to the stacks and browse those items as well as the ones nearby

Printing/Scanning

Scanners are available in Barnard, room 304 in Butler, and in all over library locations. Does not require UNI. See the full guide to scanning at Columbia Libraries.
There are color printers on the first floor of the Milstein Center at Barnard, and in 304 Butler.

Browse the stacks using the Library of Congress call number ranges:

GT Manners and customs (including Costume, Dress, and Fashion)
N Fine Arts
NA Architecture
NB Sculpture
NC Drawing, design, and illustration
ND Painting
NE Print Media
NK Decorative Arts
NX Arts in general
TR Photography
TT Handicrafts, arts and crafts

Theatre

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Barnard Art Librarian

Performing Arts Librarian