Studio Art: Photography
Resources for photography research
Finding Images
Find images in library databases, museum collections, and local collections, as well as in the library's physical art books.
Find Images in Research Databases
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JSTOR
Provides access to journal articles, books, images, and primary sources. Contents include the Artstor image collection, archival and current scholarly journal content, and historical documents.
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UWM Libraries Digital CollectionsThe Digital Collections at the UWM Libraries include over 180,000 photographic images, maps, and books drawn from the collections of the American Geographical Society Library, the Archives, Special Collections, and the Curriculum Collection.
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Digital Public Library of America (DPLA)
The Digital Public Library of America strives to contain the full breadth of human expression, from the written word, to works of art and culture, to records of America’s heritage, to the efforts and data of science. Contains materials from all the UW System Digital Collections, Recollection Wisconsin, the National Archives and Records Administration, University of California System, the Smithsonian, and the New York Public Library.
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Europeana
Europeana enables people to explore the digital resources of Europe's museums, libraries, archives and audio-visual collections. It promotes discovery and networking opportunities in a multilingual space where users can engage, share in and be inspired by the rich diversity of Europe's cultural and scientific heritage.
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ArtveeSeveral major museums and libraries have instituted an open access policy by designating most or all of the public domain art in their collections with a creative commons license making them available for use for any purpose with no restrictions attached. Artvee sorts through and aggregates the best of these images in one location to make them easy to discover and download.
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Getty Research Institute Photo Archive GuideApproximately half the holdings in the Photo Archive are represented by descriptive, nonpictorial records in the Photo Archive Database. Searchable by key word and artist name, the database is particularly useful for patrons conducting iconographic or thematic research as searches can be conducted across periods, styles, and media.
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Library of Congress: Prints and Online Photograph CatalogThe collections of the Prints & Photographs Division include photographs, fine and popular prints and drawings, posters, and architectural and engineering drawings. While international in scope, the collections are particularly rich in materials produced in, or documenting the history of, the U.S. and the lives, interests and achievements of the American people.
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New York Public Library Digital CollectionsThis site is a living database with new materials added every day, featuring prints, photographs, maps, manuscripts, streaming video, and more.
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Smithsonian Collections Search CenterSearch over 17.1 million records of museum objects, archives and library materials including more than 6.3 million online images, audio & videos and blog posts.
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CC SearchCC Search is a tool that allows openly licensed and public domain works to be discovered and used by everyone. Creative Commons, the nonprofit behind CC Search, is the maker of the CC licenses, used over 1.4 billion times to help creators share knowledge and creativity online.
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Google Images Reverse Image SearchFour ways to search by image via Google: Drag and drop, upload an image, copy and paste the URL for an image, right-click an image on the web (some functions require Chrome browser).
Museum Photography Collections
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Digital Public Library of America: The Evolution of the Personal CameraSince the advent and eventual commercialization of photography throughout the nineteenth century, cameras have continuously redefined the American public’s conception of how images and history can be captured and shared. Looking to the early cameras of the 1800s to today’s cell phones and social networking apps, this exhibition explores how the personal camera has shaped American consciousness and culture over the course of its development
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Fotomuseum WinterthurThe collection at Fotomuseum Winterthur consists of international artistic positions from the 1960s up to the immediate present. Through purchases that are closely linked the the museum’s contemporary exhibition programme as well as through generous gifts and permanent loans, around 9,000 photographic objects have joined the collection to date.
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George Eastman MuseumThe George Eastman Museum is the world’s oldest photography museum and one of the oldest film archives. The museum holds unparalleled collections—encompassing several million objects—in the fields of photography, cinema, and photographic and cinematographic technology, and photographically illustrated books. The institution is also a longtime leader in film preservation and photographic conservation.
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Google Arts & Culture Museum PartnersInternational museums you can visit virtually.
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International Center of PhotographyThe International Center of Photography is the world’s leading institution dedicated to photography and visual culture. The permanent collection contains more than 200,000 prints and related materials that range from the earliest forms of photography to contemporary work.
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The J. Paul Getty Museum Photograph CollectionThe Getty Museum has assembled the finest and most comprehensive corpus of photographs on the West Coast. The collection is particularly rich in works dating from the time of photography’s invention in England and France in the late 1830s and early 1840s. International in scope, it encompasses substantial holdings by some of the most significant masters of the twentieth century active in Europe, the United States, South America, Asia, and Africa.
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The Met Photograph CollectionThe Met's Department of Photographs houses a collection of more than seventy-five thousand works spanning the history of photography from its invention in the 1830s to the present. Among the treasures from the early years of the medium are a rare album of photographs by William Henry Fox Talbot made just months after he presented his invention to the public; a large collection of portrait daguerreotypes by the Boston firm of Southworth and Hawes; landscape photographs of the American West by Timothy O'Sullivan and Carleton Watkins; and fine examples of French photography from the 1850s by Edouard Baldus, Charles Nègre, Gustave Le Gray, Henri Le Secq, Nadar, and others.
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Museum of Contemporary Photography (MoCP) Digital ExhibitionsDigital exhibitions showcase photographs from the MoCP permanent collection that have been selected by artists, curators, cultural producers, educators, and students often in response to the current exhibition on view.
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National Gallery of Art - PhotographyIn 1990 the National Gallery launched an initiative to acquire the finest examples of the art of photography and to mount photography exhibitions of the highest quality, accompanied by scholarly publications and programs. In the years since, the Gallery’s collection of photographs has grown to over 20,000 works encompassing the history of the medium from its beginnings in 1839 to the present, featuring in-depth holdings of work by many of the masters of the art form. The Gallery’s program of exhibitions and publications is now considered among the best in the world.
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Smithsonian Photograph and Image CollectionsPhotographs and other images at the Smithsonian Institution Archives are not in a central file, but are dispersed throughout its collections. However, there are a few collections which are mostly devoted to photographs. Many digitized images from these and other collections can be found Archives' Collection Search.
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Tokyo Photographic Art MuseumThe Tokyo Photographic Art Museum is one of the few art museums in the world dedicated to photography and moving images. The museum’s three exhibition galleries hold about twenty exhibitions each year that highlight the museum’s extensive lineup and our curators’ deep expertise. These exhibitions include thematic collection exhibitions of pieces—some rare—selected from our collection of 36,274 works, as well as special exhibitions that introduce outstanding works from Japan and around the world from unique perspectives.
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Victoria & Albert Museum PhotographyThe V&A began acquiring photographs in 1852, and its collection is now one of the largest and most important in the world. The collection has grown to be international in scope and comprises over 800,000 photographs dating from 1839 to the present. Photography can be seen as a combination of science and art, in which advances in technique continually feed creativity and artistic achievement.
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Museo Nacional de la Fotografía de Colombia (Fotomuseo)Museo Nacional de la Fotografía de Colombia serves collect and show works from Columbia and international artists.
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PhMuseumSince 2013, PhMuseum has been offering free online exhibitions pioneering what is now a common practice. Being aware that a virtual showcase differs from the experience you can have in a physical space, we always believed in the unique aspects of the online world that can grant free access to everybody around the world. Especially, for those who don't have easy access to museums and curated showcases in their countries.
Local Museum Photography Collections
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UWM Art Collection - PhotosThe UWM Art Collection comprises a broad array of western and non-western art objects, ancient to contemporary. Areas of special strength include prints from the 15th to 20th century, Greek and Russian Icons, American folk art, and ethnographic collections of Africa and Oceania.
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Milwaukee Art Museum - Herzfeld Photography, Print, and Drawing Study CenterThe Herzfeld Photography, Print, and Drawing Study Center provides researchers and students access to the Museum’s extensive collection of works on paper, only a small fraction of which is on view in the galleries at any given time. The George Mann Niedecken Archives, Landfall Press Archives, and portions of the Brooks Stevens Archives are also accessed through the Study Center. The Study Center is located on the lower level of the Museum, adjacent to the Herzfeld Center for Photography and New Media.
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Milwaukee Public Museum - Photography CollectionMPM's Photograph Collection serves as visual record of the history of the Milwaukee Public Museum. Most of the estimated 300,000 images in the collection were taken by Museum staff and record the work of the Museum -– its collections, research, exhibitions, and activities. Images from the collection increase awareness of the Museum and are used in exhibits, textbooks, journals, and electronic media.