Digital Resources by Subject
Open Digital Resources by Subject (Note: these are in addition to the CSU subscription resources i.e. ArtStor, Grove, etc.)
African Art
Helpful websites relating to African Art:
This site is a contemporary art site that focuses heavily on the history of African Art as it relates to contemporary art, going over topics as ancient as cave and wall paintings all the way through African sculpture and carvings.
Part of the Guggenheim site, this link connects to a click-able map that allows you to view a map of Africa, select a region or area, and be linked to a page detailing the art of that particular region.
The Art & Life in Africa website, hosted by the University of Iowa Stanley Museum of Art (UISMA), is a freely accessible educational resource that is the product of the collaborative efforts of more than fifty scholars, technicians, collectors and institutions around the world.
This link is to the London Royal Academy page for one of the Royal Academy members, Yinka Shonibare, who is currently an active African Artist and Art Historian.
Art 100
A subscription image database, ArtStor contains nearly two million images in the arts, architecture, humanities, and sciences. Since it is a subscription database, you’ll have to access it while on the CSU network or create a log in remotely. For the Virtual Art Exhibit assignment I recommend browsing ArtStor’s classifications. Please see the help page or email me if you need help navigating this site.
The MET is the largest art museum in the United States, and one of the ten largest in the world, with the most significant art collections. You can search and easily download images from the MET’s collection.
One of the largest and most influential modern art museums in the world. The MoMa currently hosts 83,000 works online.
The Walters Art Museum based in Baltimore, has phenomenal digital galleries that provide detailed information on individual artworks including its provenance and conservation.
Art Education
Colorado Department of Education
This is a link to the Colorado Department of Education website which offers information and resources regarding the education system in the state of Colorado.
The above link is for the Colorado Art Education Association website – another Colorado based resource for Art Education.
National Art Education Association
The link above is for the website of the National Art Education Association.
ARTSEDGE: The Kennedy’s Center Arts Education Network
Resources that give plans, lessons, guides, and standards for teaching in and with the arts. There is a search function to find a variety of topics to teach.
Art Education Resource Guide • National Art Education Association
An easy to use guide to find art education products and services.
A blog by Anne Pfeiffer discussing a wide array of subjects within art education.
Ceramics
A growing collection of contemporary ceramics images juried by a curatorial board. Access Ceramics is designed for use by artists, arts educators, scholars and the general public, and aims to fill a void in contemporary ceramics digital image collections on the web.
VADS (Visual Arts Data Services)
VADS has built up a considerable portfolio of visual art collections comprising over 120,000 images that are freely available and copyright cleared for use in learning, teaching and research. Of particular interest to ceramic students is their learning index on ceramic decoration and the digital ceramics collection from the Craft Study Center.
Digital Library for the Decorative Arts and Material Culture
This database collects and creates electronic resources for study and research of the decorative arts, focusing on arts of Early America. Included are electronic texts and facsimiles, image databases, and Web resources.
The Victoria and Albert museum has over one million searchable objects including ceramics.
An online database for ancient Greek vases from collections around the world.
The Pottery Studio is a worthwhile first stop for learning more about major and minor potters and potteries. There are already over seven thousand six hundred pages, and we are adding to them regularly. Potter biographical pages also include bibliographies that may prove useful.
Drawing
A wonderful resource for contemporary drawing. One resource that students may find particularly useful is the Viewing Program database, which you can search by medium, keyword, location, or artist name. The Viewing Program, started in 1977, is an opportunity for emerging artists the opportunity to include their work in a curated Artist Registry.
Search the university’s image database of over 80,000 images using artist names or the keyword ‘drawing’.
Focusing on illustration, this website can be browsed by styles and individual illustrators. (Note: this website is also useful for those interested in electronic arts and graphic design.)
Museums can be a wonderful resource for finding images. The Frick Museum, a world renown museum in New York, has a large collection of drawings and works on paper.
German Expressionism at LACMA Begun in 1946 and augmented in 1980 by establishment of the Robert Gore Rifkind Center for German Expressionist Studies, this collection includes a rich selection of paintings, sculptures, prints, drawings, and illustrated books.
German Expressionism at MOMA The Modern Museum of Art in New York has a wonderful website that details 3,000 Expressionist prints, drawings, paintings, sculptures, illustrated books, and periodicals. The website includes useful research tools including chronologies, maps, and artist biographies. There are also digitized German expressionist illustrated books.
German Expressionism A resource for German Expressionist prints, artist biographies, links to exhibitions, catague raisonnes and public collections based on the collection of Joerg Maass.
Frist Center for Visual Arts The Frist Center, in Detroit, is currently hosting an exhibition featuring works from the renowned collection of early twentieth-century German Expressionist paintings, sculptures, prints, and drawings, by artists who belonged to the groups known as The Blue Rider (active in Munich) and The Bridge (active in Dresden and Berlin). This website has an audio tour of the exhibition, a recommended reading list, and a gallery
Fibers
Avenir Museum of Design and Merchandising
The Avenir Museum, formerly the Historic Costume and Textiles Collection, is dedicated to exploring the aesthetic, social, cultural and physical significance of textiles, dress and interior furnishings.
Focusing on fashionable costumes from the 16th century until present the Fashion Museum, Bath has an extensive collection of nearly 30,000 pieces. Especially helpful is their online collection search feature.
The university museum of Britain’s UCA (University for Creative Arts)’s textile collections represent some of Britain’s most outstanding names in the modern crafts movement. You can search via printed textiles, woven textiles, or needlepoint.
The Mode Museum in Antwerp, Belgium has an Open Fashion collection database that is easily searchable.
Is an online resource for visual arts. It has provided services to the academic community for 12 years and has built up a considerable portfolio of visual art collections comprising over 100,000 images that are freely available and copyright cleared for use in learning, teaching and research in the UK. Of particular interest to fibers students is the Central Saint Martins collection; Goldsmith Textile Collection; Pockets of History; UCA collection; and the Zandra Rhodes study collection
Graphic Design
International Poster Collection
A collaboration between the CSU libraries and the Art Department created the International Poster Collection database of the work created for the Colorado International Invitational Poster Exhibition.
A virtual museum of typography.
AIGA, the professional association for design, has a digital archive that includes more than 20000 selections from special collections and AIGA’s annual juried design competitions since 1924.
The complete set of 50 passenger/pedestrian symbols developed by AIGA is available for all to use, free of charge. Signs are available here in EPS and GIF formats.
A collaborative online space for Australian designers.
A open database of book cover designs, which is maintained by two designers.
The Graphic Design Archives at RIT document and preserve the work of significant American graphic designers active from the 1920s to the 1950s. In addition, selected contemporary designers working in the modernist traditions are also included.
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Collections
The Prints and Photographs Online Catalog (PPOC) contains catalog records and digital images representing a rich cross-section of still pictures held by the Prints & Photographs Division, including graphic art, advertising, and design. The Library of Congress offers broad public access to these materials as a contribution to education and scholarship allowing users to download TIFF resolution images.
Printing and Graphics in NYPL Digital Collection
The NYPL Digital Collection provides free and open access to over 800,000 images digitized from the The New York Public Library’s vast collections. It is a wonderful resource for historical examples of advertising, book binding, dust jackets, friendship books, menus, post cards, posters, trade and greeting cards.
Medieval and Renaissance Art History
University of Oxford’s Bodleian Library includes nearly 30,000 digitized medieval and renaissance manuscripts.
The Digital Scriptorium is a growing image database of medieval and renaissance manuscripts. Currently, the database has 5,300 manuscripts and 24,300 images that are viewable and available for download.
Harry Ransom Center: Medieval and Early Modern Manuscripts
The Medieval and Early Modern Manuscripts Collection at the Harry Ransom Center in Texas contains 215 medieval or Renaissance manuscripts that date between the 11th and 17th centuries.
Mapping Gothic France is an amazing tool that provides users with new ways to understand and experience the space of ‘Gothic’ buildings built in France.
National Gallery: Raphael Research Resource
A study of paintings by Raphael has produced an exceptional collection of material over the half millennium since their creation. This resource provides a wealth of information to researchers and contains information from a large number of institutions and collections.
The Walters Art Museum, based in Baltimore, has phenomenal digital galleries that provide detailed information on individual artworks including its provenance and conservation. Worthwhile galleries to browse are: Arts and Armor ; Manuscript and Rare Books ; Medieval Europe ; and Renaissance Europe
Metalsmithing and Jewelry
You can search and download images from the MET’s collection, which includes nearly 60,000 indexed objects related to metalsmithing and jewelry.
The Museum of Art and Design, which has extensive collections in contemporary metal and jewelry work has a browse able collection. Try refining by object or material type to find a particular type of work.
From ancient jewelry to contemporary studio jewelry, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston has an exciting collection of jewelry from almost every culture.
Victoria and Albert Museum Jewelry
A wonderful resource, the V&A has 3,000 jewels that tell the story of jewellery in Europe from ancient times to the present day. The website includes informative videos and articles related to jewelry making and history.
Victoria and Albert Museum Metalwork
The V&A, in addition to its resources relating to jewelry, has an extensive collection of metalsmith work. Much of its metal collection is viewable online through its digital gallery.
Wisconsin Decorative Arts Database
The Wisconsin Decorative Arts Database documents more than 1,000 examples of Wisconsin’s rich material heritage from the collections of dozens of museums, historical societies and private individuals across the state, including images of metalwork.
Native Arts
Includes a wealth of historical photographs, albums, oral histories, moving images, maps, documents, physical objects, and other materials from libraries, museums, and archives throughout the state. Several of these materials pertain to Alaska Native history and culture
Provides free and open-access to material from the collections of the Library of Congress and other institutions, including written and spoken words, sound recordings, still and moving images, prints, maps, and sheet music that document the American experience. Browse the Native American History collections.
Bureau of Indian Affairs, US Department of the Interior
“Established in 1824, IA currently provides services to approximately 1.9 million American Indians and Alaska Natives. There are 565 federally recognized American Indian tribes and Alaska Natives in the United States.”
The Kennedy Center: ArtsEdge
“Experience traditional Native American culture through dance, music and visual arts. Watch Native Pride the eagle and hoop dances, trace the life of a Navajo weaver, learn how Keith Bear makes a flute, make a listening doll, and meet fancy dancers Larry and Jessup Yazzie.”
Includes numerous high resolution image collections such as, Images of Indians of North America. One collection that is particularly interesting for student of native communities and photography is the Edward Curtis collection.
A wonderful resource for undergraduate and graduate scholars. The National Archives includes a number of Native American Heritage collections.
National Congress of American Indians
“Founded in 1944, the National Congress of American Indians (NCAI) is the oldest, largest, and most representative American Indian and Alaska Native organization serving the broad interests of tribal governments and communities.”
Native American Heritage Month
A collaborative project of the Library of Congress and the National Endowment for the Humanities, National Gallery of Art, National Park Service, Smithsonian Institution, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, and U.S. National Archives and Records Administration that pays tribute to the rich ancestry and traditions of Native Americans.
Native Americans and the Environment
A nonprofit project of the National Council for Science and the Environment that educates the public on environmental issues in Native American communities, explores the values and historical experiences that Native Americans bring to bear on environmental issues, and promotes conservation measures that respect Native American land and resource rights.
National Museum of the American Indian YouTube Channel
Contains videos of lectures and symposia, music performances, native storytelling, and more.
Museum of Contemporary Native Arts
“The Museum of Contemporary Native Arts (MoCNA) is the country’s only museum for exhibiting, collecting and interpreting the most progressive work of contemporary Native artists. MoCNA is dedicated solely to advancing the scholarship, discourse and interpretation of contemporary Native art for regional, national and international audiences.”
Pacific Northwest Indian Tribes and Languages
“An index to Native American language and cultural information pertaining to Northwest Coast Indian tribes.”
UCLA American Indian Studies Center
This website represents a Virtual Museum of 3D artifacts selected from the collections at the Hampson Archeological Museum State Park in Wilson, Arkansas.
Photography
Photography processes
The George Eastman House is a non-profit museum that provides informative videos on photographic processes as well as videos on individual photographers.
Graphic Atlas is produced by the Image Permanence Institute. The website has features to explore and compare photography formats and techniques.
Magnum, perhaps the most famous photographic collective, was c0-founded by Henri Cartier-Bresson, Robert Capa, David Seymour, George Rodger, and William Vandivert. Magnum Learn is the collective’s video and podcast channel.
Images and information of various photographic technologies.
Victoria and Albert Museum Photography Techniques
Includes the working methods of a number of photographers in addition to resources related to identifying photographic processes.
Flickr Commons displays images from public image archives and aims to make public domain photography more accessible. There are no known copyright restrictions with these images.
The Prints and Photographs Online Catalog (PPOC) contains catalog records and digital images. This is a very rich and freely accessible resource. Many photographs have high resolution TIFF downloads available. You shouldn’t pay for a Ansel Adams or Dorothea Lange poster again!
Metropolitan Museum of Art Photography Collections
A lot of content from the MET’s collections are available through ARTStor but the website for the museum’s photography collections is still a useful resource. Here you’ll find over 30,000 photographs from some of history’s most famous image makers.
Sculpture
V&A Sculpture Learning Resources
Student Publishing Plan, Embargo Information and Intellectual Property
Student Publishing Plan, Embargo Information, and IP Guidelines Sept 14
