Research Guides: Interdisciplinary Fine Arts: Image Resources

Images for Use in Arts Integration

This page covers three types of image resources:

1) Library and public databases from a variety of disciplines with a focus on images. In most cases you can save and download the images. Some may require the use of FlashPlayer. To download, print, or save some images, you may need to create a free account in that database.

2) Links to online museum and library collections. In many cases these institutions offer digital exhibits, lesson plans, blogs, podcasts, and other supplementary information.

3) Online information specific to multidisciplinary work in the visual and performing arts.

Image Databases

ARTstor Collections This link opens in a new window
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The ARTstor Digital Library provides more than one million images with tools for teaching and research. Its collections comprise contributions from outstanding museums, photographers, libraries, scholars, photo archives, and artists and artists' estates from all over the world.
Image Quest This link opens in a new window
Includes access to more than two million images organized by subject matter from more than 50 collections, such as the National Portrait Gallery of London, the National Geographic Society, and others. All images are rights-cleared for non-commercial, educational use, and may be used in student projects and reports; school Web sites; school newsletters; and other educational uses. Images can be downloaded, printed, saved in a "Lightbox" or virtual folder, or e-mailed as jpegs.

Getty Search Gateway
Currently there are more than 87,000 images from the J. Paul Getty Museum and the Getty Research Institute available through the Open Content Program. Additional images will be added over time.
Wikimedia Commons
A database of 29,460,574 freely usable media files to which anyone can contribute. These are not necessarily art images, but it can be a good source for buildings, outdoor monuments, and architecture.

AP Newsroom This link opens in a new window
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Electronic library containing the current photos and a selection of pictures from the print and negative library of The Associated Press. Database access limited to 5 simultaneous users

Photography at the National Archives
Links to collections of photographs about American life and culture.

Museum, Library, and Archive Collections

Many public and private sources are now making digital content available online.

Rijksmuseum
Explore more than 125,000 works of art; create files of digital images; produce products using images from the collection.
Metropolitan Museum of Art
Explore more than 400,000 high-resolution images from The Metropolitan Museum of Art. The images are public domain works in the Museum’s world-renowned collection and may be downloaded directly from the Museum’s website for non-commercial use.
Library of Congress
Central portal to the Library of Congress' vast resources, and to electronic resources chosen by the Library staff. Includes over 1.2 million digitized photographs, images, books, articles, cybercasts and other material. Search in "American Memory," or "Prints and Photographs" to find what you need.
National Gallery of Art
Explore thousands of the most significant works of art from the Renaissance to the present day. Our growing collection includes European and American masterpieces in every medium. Browse the collection and make connections between the objects you know and newly discovered gems.
NYPL Image Collection
Database of public domain images from the archives of the New York Public Library.
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Online
Online exhibitions with downloadable images on a wide variety of topics in American history.
Library of Congress Digital Collections
This site contains a wide variety of digitized material from across the Library of Congress's collections, including manuscripts, photographs, audio-visual materials and much more. Additional materials are added every year.
Smithsonian Digital Collections
These are archival materials owned by the Smithsonian that have been digitized. They are from a variety of collections across disciplines. Users can search by repository or by keyword.
The Walters Art Museum
The Walters Art Museum in Baltimore, Maryland is internationally renowned for its collection of art. The collection presents an overview of world art from pre-dynastic Egypt to 20th-century Europe, and counts among its many treasures Greek sculpture and Roman sarcophagi; medieval ivories and Old Master paintings; Art Nouveau jewelry and 19th-century European and American masterpieces.
Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA)
The BMA’s internationally renowned collection of 95,000 objects encompasses more than 1,000 works by Henri Matisse anchored by the famed Cone Collection of modern art, as well as one of the nation’s finest holdings of prints, drawings, and photographs.

Cross-Disciplinary Digital Humanities Tools in the Arts

Google Arts & Culture
This online platform provides free access to high-res images and contextual information from partner museums. There are several artificial intelligence features to Google Arts & Culture. Users should be aware of potential data-mining in these programs.
Uncovering America
A National Gallery of Art online exhibit with teaching modules that use arts integration.
Americans Online Exhibit
A virtual exhibit exploring images of Native people in U.S. popular culture. Includes educational resources in several disciplines.
Tenement Museum
For the past several years, the Tenement Museum has been hosting a crowd-sourced project centered around the objects and traditions that tell stories of American migration and cultural identity. Around that exhibit they have shaped interactive online activities.

Ask a Librarian

Interdisciplinary Fine Arts

Images for Use in Arts Integration

Image Databases

Museum, Library, and Archive Collections

Many public and private sources are now making digital content available online.

Cross-Disciplinary Digital Humanities Tools in the Arts