LibGuides: Art: Images & Inspiration

Art Image Databases

The subscription library databases below provide authentic, high-quality images of art.

JSTOR Images This link opens in a new window
High-quality authoritative images of art. Covers many time periods and subjects including architecture, painting, sculpture, photography, decorative arts, design, anthropology, and ethnographic and women's studies, as well as many other forms of visual culture.
Oxford Art Online This link opens in a new window
Includes scholarly art encyclopedia articles, information about the sale and collection of artists’ work, artists’ biographies, and peer-reviewed articles.

Archival Collections Online

Online Archive of California (OAC)
Free public access to searchable collection guides (also known as finding aids) for primary resource collections in repositories maintained by more than 200 institutions throughout California, including many digitized collections.
Digital Public Library of America (DPLA)
Find many primary source documents such as legislation, letters, and petitions, including on the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
Los Angeles Public Library Images
The Los Angeles Public Library Photo Collection emphasizes the history of Los Angeles, Southern California, and California. This Internet-accessible collection is one of the treasures of the Central Library.
Calisphere
Calisphere provides free access to unique and historically important artifacts for research, teaching, and curious exploration. Discover over 750,000 photographs, documents, letters, artwork, diaries, oral histories, films, advertisements, musical recordings, and more.
HIV, AIDS & the Arts
nspired by the many contemporary critical works and archives focusing on the intellectual and social history of HIV and AIDS, Reveal Digital will add to the suite of digital archives in its Diversity & Dissent fund an internationally scoped collection of primary sources documenting the artistic response to the epidemic.

Cal State LA Special Collections & Archives

Special Collections & Archives houses photographs, paper-based artworks, posters, documents archives from artists and artist collectives, Mesoamerican ceramics, and more. Below are highlights of the collections.

Bookplate Collection
Bookplates, or ex libris, are labels with a printed design intended to show ownership, usually pasted inside the front cover of a book. Sizes of bookplates vary from folio to very small. They are printed on white or colored paper, vellum, or leather. Bookplates are produced by various means such as woodcut, wood engraving, line engraving, etching, lithography, and modern photographic reproduction.
Cal State LA Chicano/a Poster Collection
The materials in this collection were created from 1968-1978. The entire collection consists of posters. The posters announce events presented by the Chicano Studies Department at California State University, Los Angeles. The events include Feria De La Raza, United Mexican-American Students Present Community Day on Campus and a series of posters announcing the message, “Conoce Tu Herencia Cultural”.
Compton Communicative Arts Academy Collection
The materials in the Compton Communicative Arts Academy (CCAA) archive were created from 1968-1985 by Communicative Arts Academy’s (CAA) coordinator of photography, Willie Ford. The bulk of this collection contains negatives ranging from 35mm negatives, 35mm negative slides, and 120mm negatives followed by photographs, and publications. The visual narrative contains information on events surrounding the CCA. The collection details a visual historical narrative of the city of Compton through the arts. The collection documents and preserves Black memory, testimony, tradition, and culture in Compton.
Northwest Coast Art Collection
The collection consists of art, posters, and art cards, primarily from the 1970s-80s by the
Kwakwaka'wakw, Nuu-chah-nulth, Gitxsan, and Haida peoples of the Northwest.
WWII Poster Collection
With the entrance of US Forces into World War II in 1941 the United States Government produced propaganda posters designed to increase support for the war on the home front. Posters encouraged the public to conserve materials for the war efforts, increase productions of war materials, buy war bonds and maintain secrecy. This collection houses a variety of posters from artist like, Norman Rockwell, Albert Dorne and Fritz Siebel.
Mesoamerican Rare Book Collection
The Mesoamerica and Colonial Mexico Rare Book Collection consists of facsimile editions of Pre-Columbian Codices, such as the Borgia, Nuttall, Fejervary-Mayer, Vaticanus A and B, Selden, Borbonicus, Boturini, Mendoza, De la Cruz-Badiano, and Florentine Codex.

Museum Collections Online

Museums worldwide are digitizing their collections and making them available to you online.

Search Google for artists, genres, or places, plus words like Museum, Gallery, Collection Catalog, Archives, Digital Collections, etc. to find images.

Metropolitan Museum of Art Collection Catalog
Image catalog of the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
LACMA Collection Catalog
Image catalog of the collection of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
Google Arts & Cutlure
Google has collaborated with several Art Museums to display high quality art images online.
Getty Art Collections
Search and download from the Getty Museum's collections.
Europeana
Paintings, music, films and books from Europe's galleries and museums.
Smithsonian Art & Design Collections
Artworks from the Smithsonian collections including the American Art Museum, African Art Museum, Portrait Gallery, and more.
VADS
VADS provides a national collection of over 140,000 images from over 300 art and design collections across the UK, which are freely available for non-commercial use in education. The images cover the broad range of the visual arts including applied arts, architecture, design, fashion, fine art, and media. VADS is a service of the Library at the University for the Creative Arts (UCA).

Select Books

Book cover with portrait of Barack Obama

The Obama Portraits

Portraiture and Photography in Africa

Chicano and Chicana Art

Frida Kahlo

My Reality

La Artland

Cindy Sherman

Beyond Decorum

Iranian Contemporary Art

Find Books

Books are an excellent source of high-quality images of art. Use the following tips to find books in the library with images of art.

Search for an artist or genre
Narrow to books
Oversize (large) books are a great source of images

Free Stock Images

While the databases and museum websites above are best for images of works of art, these image websites can be used to find reference images and free images for collage and digital art.

Google Images
Images available on the web, subject to copyright restrictions.
Pixabay
Over 570000 high quality photos, illustrations, and vector graphics. Free for commercial use. No attribution required.
Pexels
Free stock photos, royalty-free images & videos shared by creators.
Flickr
Copyright-free images. Use the Flickr URL in your timeline spreadsheets.