Research Guides: ARH & ARS : Art & Architecture: Background Information

Visual Arts Librarian

she/her

Subjects: Art, Classics, German, Italian, Landscape Studies, Museums Concentration, Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies

General Sources

Reference materials are a great way to read more about the background information on a topic. This includes encyclopedias, indexes, and glossaries to get a better sense of who an artist was, the definition of an art term, or the history of a particular period of time in art.

Oxford Art Online This link opens in a new window Covers every aspect of the visual arts from prehistory to the present including art movements, media & materials, themes & subjects, specific places & monuments, and 21,000 individual artists with bibliographies and image links.

Art and Architecture General dictionaries of art and architecture, special dictionaries and guides to design, 20th-century art, western art published by Oxford University Press.

Oxford Bibliographies Online This link opens in a new window A scholar-curated library of subject bibliographies in the humanities & social sciences; each entry offers a guided tour through key literature on a topic.
Oxford Handbooks Online This link opens in a new window Review essays evaluating the current thinking on a field or topic. Articles review the key issues, reveal original arguments and concepts, and set the agenda for new research.
Routledge Handbooks Online This link opens in a new window DRM-free handbooks offering peer-reviewed research articles in the humanities, social sciences, education, psychology, engineering & built environment. Chapters can be browsed, searched, viewed & downloaded.

The Grove Encyclopedia of Materials and Techniques in Art Provides historical and current uses of materials and techniques in a wide range of areas from painting and sculpture to non-traditional media such as digital and video art for anyone who studies, creates, collects, or deals in works of art.
Bloomsbury Design Library The Bloomsbury Design Library is a comprehensive online resource that offers coverage of interior, industrial, and graphic design and crafts, from 1500 BCE to the present day. Includes Bloomsbury Encyclopedia of Design and World History of Design.

Biography in Context MLIN [Gale] This link opens in a new window Biographies from dictionaries, encyclopedias, and magazines. (Formerly Biography Resource Center.)
Marquis Who's Who This link opens in a new window Searchable biographies from Who's Who in America, Who was Who in America, and the regional and subject Who's Who titles.

Benezit Dictionary of Artists A comprehensive and definitive resource for artists’ biographies, published since 1911.
American Art Collaborative The American Art Collaborative (AAC) is a consortium of 14 art museums in the United States. The Collaborative believes that Linked Open Data offers rich potential to increase the understanding of art by expanding access to cultural holdings, by deepening research connections for scholars and curators, and by creating public interfaces for students, teachers, and museum visitors.

Artprice This link opens in a new window Fine arts auction prices & indices, with detailed auction sales results.

Artnet Images and information about artists; extensive list/links to galleries featuring contemporary art; list/links to current exhibitions, art fairs, and other events
AskArt Provides biographic, bibliographic, and image information on over 200,000 artists. Browse by artist's name only (no search capability for media).
Artsy Artsy features the world’s leading galleries, museum collections, foundations, artist estates, art fairs, and benefit auctions, all in one place.

Special Topics

Cartoonists of Color Database The Cartoonists of Color database was created and is currently maintained by cartoonist MariNaomi as a way to spotlight marginalized comics creators.
Queer Cartoonists Database The Queer Cartoonists database was created and is currently maintained by cartoonist MariNaomi as a way to spotlight marginalized comics creators.

Loeb Classical Library This link opens in a new window The major collection of Greek & Latin texts, continuously updated. Highly searchable, with single- & dual-language reading modes; marking & annotation features, plus tools for sharing; ability to create & save bookshelf.

Brill's New Pauly "Presents the current state of traditional and new areas of research and brings together specialist knowledge from leading scholars from all over the world. Many entries are elucidated with maps and illustrations and ... includes updated bibliographic references."
Oxford Classical Dictionary 3rd ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999. Standard abbreviations used in classical scholarship are given in the front matter.
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Provides "coverage of Greek and Roman history, literature, myth, religion, linguistics, philosophy, law, science, art and archaeology, and topics in near eastern studies and late antiquity.

Oxford Islamic Studies Online This link opens in a new window Reference content & commentary by renowned scholars, plus Qur'anic materials, primary sources, images, maps & timelines. Includes Oxford Encyclopedia of the Islamic World and other core reference works on Islam.

Berg Fashion Library This link opens in a new window Includes Encyclopedia of World Dress and Fashion, Berg fashion eBooks, color images from noted costume collections, and fashion reference material.
CoPA-Online: Commercial Pattern Archive 1847+ This link opens in a new window CoPA-Online contains 55,000+ scanned images (garments & pattern schematics) from commercially produced patterns; unique tool to recreate or date clothing from 1847 to present.
The Commercial Pattern Archive database, CoPA-Online, is the brainchild of Joy Spanabel Emery (1936-2018), founding curator of the Commercial Pattern Archive at the University of Rhode Island. It provides a unique tool for researchers and designers to recreate or date clothing from 1847 to present. Collections from the US, Canada and the UK are represented in the database which functions like a Union Catalog of pattern collections. The Pattern Archive is a project of the US Institute for Theatre Technology (USITT) Costume Commission. The cornerstone of CoPA is the Betty Williams Collection.

Fashion History Timeline From FIT: Hundreds of essays on specific artworks, garments, and films, the Fashion History Timeline equips students and researchers with essential facts, vocabulary, models of analysis, and links to digitized primary & secondary sources

Anti-Racist Resources

De-centering Whiteness in Design History
A bibliography of sources about design and design history that de-centers whiteness.
ArtxHistory
ArtxHistory is an education resource of commonly available images, videos, mini-lectures and scholarship of the decades which influenced or defined modern through contemporary art. The core intent of ArtxHistory is to offer an art history that replaces the dominant white, male, heteronormative, advantaged, celebrity narratives for a more inclusive history balanced with the work of women, artists of color, LGBTQIA+ persons, intersectional makers, and the self-taught.

New resources

Art & Architecture ePortal (A&AePortal) This link opens in a new window
Art and architectural history scholarship from some of the world's finest publishers and museums.

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About

ARH & ARS : Art & Architecture

Visual Arts Librarian

General Sources

Special Topics

Anti-Racist Resources

New resources