Research Guides: Visual Arts: Websites

Museum Websites

Museum websites offer excellent information many different aspects of art including provenance, conservation, and interpetation.
Search for images of art objects and other media here. Remember that not every museum will allow you to download digital copies of these works. It is your responsibility to respect museum copyrights.

Archives of American Art
Search thousands of digitized images through the Archives of American Art which is part of the Smithsonian Institution. It is dedicated to documenting the history of American visual arts.
The J. Paul Getty Museum
The Getty Museum is one of the most important art museums in the country. They offer thousands of free images to download. The Getty virtual library also has eBooks which you can read online.
Kimbell Art Museum
The Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth has an excellent collection with a focus on European art but all contains Precolumbian, Asian, and African art. The Kimbell also provides detailed information regarding provenance, artistic interpretation, and any restoration. Some works also have audio from curators explaining the work's significance.
Louvre Museum
The Louvre has thousands of of paintings and sculpture. The website also features several videos and audio tours about Louvre's more famous works.
National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.
The National Gallery in Washington has a broad collection of 100,000 paintings, sculpture, prints, and photographs.
The National Gallery, London
The British National Gallery has over 2,300 works of art available to view. The website offers articles about the artists and their work as well as an in-depth glossary of art terms.
Philadelphia Museum of Art
The Philadelphia Museum of Art provides access to images of over 80,000 art objects in their collection and has an excellent search feature. The Museum offers options of audio downloads describing parts of the collect and overs extensive background on the more famous works in the collection.