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Image Research Guide

Use this guide to find various resources for your image research and scholarship in the visual arts.

Special Topics

  • Afropunk
    Afropunk is a Black subculture celebrating alternative or punk creators, from activism to art, and more. Learn about contemporary Black artists in the Afropunk blog.
  • Black Atlantic
    Black Atlantic is an art term that describes the fusion of Black cultures with other cultures around the Atlantic. Check out Tate Modern's artworks related to this term from modern to contemporary art. 
  • Black Outdoor Art
    Black Outdoor Art captures positive Black expression on social media through outdoor advertising in London, Leeds, and Bristol. They primarily feature creators who make art about racism, equality, empowerment, and their lived experiences in the United Kingdom.
  • Digital Howard
    The Prints and Photographs Department holds more than 200,000 graphic images, including photographs, slides, postcards, broadsides, prints, negatives, and maps. These items date from the mid-1600s to the present and feature many unique items such as illustrated newspapers, drawings, sketches, daguerreotypes, tintypes, stereograph cards, and glass plate negatives.
  • Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture
    The Photographs and Prints Division contains both documentary and fine art photographs, which document the history and culture of people of African descent worldwide as well as the work of photographers of African descent. The collection of over 300,000 images ranges from mid-eighteenth-century graphics to contemporary documentary and art photography.
  • ArtxHistory
    ArtxHistory is an inclusive open-access resource of images, videos, and scholarship from modern to contemporary art. The mission is to celebrate and highlight BIPOC, LGBTQIA+, and intersectional artists, and to decenter the dominant white male, heteronormative, advantaged artists.     
  • Interference Archive

    An archive consists of posters, flyers, publications, photographs, books, t-shirts, buttons, moving images, audio recordings, and other materials created as part of the participants' social movements.

  • Visual AIDS

    Visual AIDS is the only contemporary arts organization committed to raising AIDS awareness and supporting artists with HIV/AIDS. Their website includes visual art projects, exhibitions, public forums, and publications.

  • Berg Fashion Library
    Access images from V&A Museum's internationally renowned fashion collection and other sources. Includes the Berg Encyclopedia of World Dress and Fashion and content from other electronic books and journals related to dress and fashion.
  • The Costume Institute: Metropolitan Museum of Art
    The Costume Institute's collection of more than 35,000 costumes and accessories represents five continents and seven centuries of fashionable dress, regional costumes, and accessories for men, women, and children from the 15th century to the present.
  • Fashion History Timeline
    Use this open-source collection to learn about fashion and dress history. Resources include artworks, garments, and films in fashion from over a hundred museums and libraries. VADS Access over 140,000 images from art, fashion design, and textile collections from across the United Kingdom.
  • VADS
    Access over 140,000 images from art, fashion design, and textile collections from across the United Kingdom.
  • Victoria & Albert Museum: Costume
    An extensive digital collection of costumes and accessories from the mid-18th century to the present
  • Vogue Archive
    Index of articles, images, and advertisements in Vogue.

Additional Resources

  • Life Photo Archive
    Browse the Life Magazine photo archive from the 1750s to the present. 
  • Duke Digital Collections
    The Advertising and Consumer Culture collections cover American advertising from the 1850s through the 1950s. 

Subjects: Art, Digitization, Thesis
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