LibGuides: Art Resources: Museum Resources

Museum Resources

Georges Vantongerloo, Construction of Volumetric Interrelationships Derived from the Inscribed Square and the Square Circumscribed by a Circle, 1924 Major museums provide a lot of information about objects in their collections. Museum websites also may feature online exhibitions, links to articles, and educational materials for students and teachers.

See this page for links to:

American and International Museums

Fabergé and Russian Decorative Arts Collection - Virginia Museum of Fine Arts

Washington State Museums

And...a video tutorial on citing everything you find in NoodleTools:

Citing Works of Art, Photographs, and Images in NoodleTools

American and International Museums

Major museums provide a lot of information about objects in their collections. Museum websites also may feature online exhibitions, links to articles, and educational materials for students and teachers.

Art Institute of Chicago
Explore the Institute's online collections, which offer access to over 95,000 works and basic information about works of art from all areas of their encyclopedic collection. Browse the collections by category (African; American; Ancient and Byzantine; Architecture and Design; Arms, Armor, Medieval, and Renaissance; Asian; Contemporary; European Decorative Arts; European Painting and Sculpture; Indian Art of the Americas; Modern; Photography; Prints and Drawings; Textiles; Thorne Miniature Rooms). Or, search by entering terms into the "Quick Search" box.
The British Museum
The original collection of the British Museum included antiquities, coins and medals, natural history specimens and a large library collection. It now comprises over 8 million objects spanning the history of the world's cultures: from the stone tools of early man to twentieth century prints.
Louvre Museum
Search the Louvre's collection or their databases - Atlas: Database of exhibits; Inventory of the Department of Prints and Drawings; La Fayette: Database of American Art; Online catalogue of Coptic ceramics—the Clémence Neyret database (French only); Cross-Channel: Database of British art in French museums; Joconde: Database of the collections of the state museums of France (French only); Images d'Art: Database of the artworks from French museums.
Metropolitan Museum of Art
Search the Museums collection of over 5,000 years of art from around the world. Filter results by artist or culture, object type or material, geographic location, date or era, or museum department. The Met's Open Access Artworks collection includes 375,000 hi-res images of public-domain works, all of which can be downloaded, shared, and remixed without restriction. This group of Open Access images are also available on Artstor.
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Search MFA Images for historical portraits, examples of different art movements, images of objects from numerous cultures, and illustrations that span the Museum’s encyclopedic collection. Search by galleries or collections (Americas; Europe; Asia; Africa and Oceania; The Ancient World; Contemporary Art; Performance Art; Photography; Prints and Drawings; Musical Instruments; Textiles and Fashion Arts; Jewelry.)
Museum of Modern Art - Collections
Search artists and works in MoMa's evolving collection contains almost 200,000 works of modern and contemporary art. More than 70,000 works are currently available online.
Museum of Modern Art - Exhibition History
Search exhibitions from MOMA's founding in 1929 to the present. The project features over 3,500 exhibitions, illustrated by primary documents such as installation photographs, press releases, checklists, and catalogues, as well as lists of included artists. Depending on the archival resources available, an exhibition page may include installation photographs, an annotated exhibition checklist, multiple press releases, the full exhibition catalogue, and the list of participating artists.
The National Gallery, London
The National Gallery Collection contains over 2,300 works. All major traditions of Western European painting are represented from the artists of late medieval and Renaissance Italy to the French Impressionists. Search by artist or by century.
NGA Images - National Gallery of Art
NGA Images is a repository of digital images of the collections of the National Gallery of Art. On this website you can search, browse, share, and download images. A standards-based reproduction guide and a help section provide advice for both novices and experts. More than 45,000 open access digital images up to 4000 pixels each are available free of charge for download and use.
Tate Modern
Search Tate's collection of nearly 80,000 works of international modern and contemporary art. The collection has recently expanded its holdings of modern and contemporary artworks from Africa, Asia Pacific, Eastern Europe, Latin America, the Middle East and South Asia.
Whitney Museum of American Art
The Whitney's collection online provides unprecedented access to over 21,000 works by more than 3,000 artists. These works in all mediums—painting, sculpture, drawing, printmaking, photography, film, video, installation, and new media—serve as a resource for understanding art history and the creative process of artists in the United States from 1900 to today. Browse by artist's last name.

Washington State Museums

Bainbridge Island Museum of Art
Bainbridge Island Museum of Art is a collecting museum with a focus on artists and collections from the Kitsap and Olympic Peninsulas, as well as the broader Puget Sound region. The art museum features themes and artists ranging from emerging and lesser known artists to recognized masters. The exhibitions rotate on a regular basis, and admission to the museum is free.
Bellevue Arts Museum
Bellevue Arts Museum is a center for the exploration of art, craft, and design. From objects made for everyday use to cutting-edge sculpture, furniture, and jewelry, BAM celebrates the creative process, skill, and vision of today's most talented makers, with international exhibitions are placed side-by-side some of the region's most promising artists.
Frye Art Museum
Comprising 232 paintings, the Frye Founding Collection was established by two of Seattle’s earliest patrons of the arts, Charles and Emma Frye. In addition, the Museum owns an extensive collection of artworks purchased or gifted to the Museum since its opening in 1952.
Seattle Art Museum
Browse the Seattle Art Museum’s growing collection of nearly 25,000 works of art from around the world. Dating from antiquity to the present, the permanent collection represents a wide range of global cultures and historical perspectives.
Tacoma Art Museum
The Tacoma Art Museum has about 4500 artworks, 3000 of which are by Northwest artists or related to the region. The museum's collections include: Northwest Art (Studio Art, Glass, Studio Art Jewelry, Prints, Photographs); American Art (Haub Family Collection of Western American Art, Early American Modernism, Works on Paper); Japanese Woodblock Prints; and European Art. The eMuseum Collections Database makes much of the museum's holdings available online.

Virginia Museum of Fine Arts - Fabergé and Russian Decorative Arts Collection

Fabergé and Russian Decorative Arts Collection
This digital archive documents the formation of the Virgina Museum of Fine Arts renowned Fabergé and Russian decorative arts collection. More than 700 items have been digitized, resulting in 1,500 downloadable image files. The website also features many educational resources on the collection itself, including newly filmed videos of the eggs opening, interactive 360° views of the eggs, and recently digitized rare books related to Fabergé.

Citing Works of Art, Photographs, and Images in NoodleTools

Watch this tutorial to learn how to use NoodleTools to cite images in art: photographs or illustrations, "born digital" images like logos or graphics, or works of visual art.

Tutorial created by Susan Timmons, Upper School Librarian, The Harpeth Hall School, Ann Scott Carell Library, Nashville, Tennessee, September 5, 2018, using Screencast-O-Matic.