Studio Art Library Resources: Print, Slide and Photo Image Search

You may want to try searching for an image in print.  This could give you more information about an image by letting you view it in the context of a book or article. Here are some reference books that may be of use to you--you can look them up in the catalog. 

World Painting Index by Patricia Havlice Pate, 1973-2003.

• The World Painting Index and its three supplements index titles and artists of paintings. 

International Guide of Art Experts, Specialists, and Catalogues Raisonnes by D.M. Klinger, 1993 or

Art Books: A Basic Bibliography of Monographs on Artists by Wolfgang M. Freitag, 1997.

• A catalog raisonne is a book that includes an image of every work by an author (see Art Library Vocab 101 for more information). You can look up catalog raisonnes in the International Guide or Art Books or search for them in the catalog.

Index of Medieval Art.

• The Index of Medieval Art, which is located right on campus near the museum, indexes medieval art up to 1400 AD.  You can visit from 9AM to 4PM Monday-Friday.  The Index is partially online, but some resources can only be accessed in the print files.

Oxford Guide to Classical Mythology in the Arts, 1300-1900s by Jane Davidson Reid, 1993.

• An interesting resource--it lists subjects or people in classical mythology (like "Perseus" or "Neptune") and then lists paintings that feature these topics.

Dictionary of American portraits by Hayward Cirker, 1967.

• Set up similarly to a school yearbook, this resource features small reproductions of American portraits up to the 20th century, with captions.

Index to Reproductions of American Paintings by Lyn Wall Smith, 1977.

• Lists American paintings as well as the books or journals where they appear.

The Visual Resources Collection, located in McCormick Hall, has a collection of over 500,000 slides.  The slides can be borrowed from the VRC for presentations and studying.  The VRC also has a collection of photographs that can be consulted for research.

The School of Architecture also has a Visual Resources Collection.  It contains slides and lantern slides as well as drawings and slides of student work.  You can visit them at the Architecture Building to browse the collection.