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Art History

Researching an artist and their artwork

The type of resources to consult depends on the type of artist you are researching:

  •  Artists established in Art History scholarship
    (e.g., Frida Kahlo, Hieronymus Bosch, Wen Zhengming)
    • Specialized encyclopedias
    • Scholarly books, journal articles, dissertations
    • Image databases
  • Contemporary, practicing artists established in major galleries
    (e.g., Kehinde Wiley, Glenn Ligon, Kent Monkman)
    • Specialized encyclopedias, books, journal articles 
    • Artist websites, gallery websites, scholarly art history websites
    • Exhibition catalogs 
    • Maybe: scholarly books, image databases
  • Practicing lesser-known or emerging artists
    (e.g., local artists such as Asia Long)
    • Artist's website and social media
    • Art & Culture magazine articles
    • Local or regional newspapers and blogs
    • Exhibition reviews, gallery websites, social media posts
Some tips to get started researching:

Established practicing artists 

  • Start with Oxford Art Online to locate information about an artist.
    • Use the bibliography at the end of the article to identify books and articles about the artist.
  • If you cannot find the artist, try Art Full Text for articles.
  • If you are still not having any luck try searching for the artist in one of the newspaper databases.
  • Finally, try the internet. Wikipedia is often useful (look at entries' reference lists), art history websites (such as Smarthistory), gallery or museum website, and many artists have their own websites. 

Artist established in Art History 

  • Start with Oxford Art Online to locate background information about an artist.
    • Use the bibliography at the end of the entry to identify books and articles about the artist.
  • If you are still having trouble, search the International Bibliography of Art, Bibliography of the History of Art, Art Fulltext, and JStor for articles.
  • If you still cannot find anything, try Dictionary of Artists or Allgemeines Kunstler-Lexicon. This provide minimal information, but often have bibliographies that are useful. Even if you do not read German, you can usually find the bibliography, if there is one, in the Kunstler-Lexicon.

Describing a piece from the MU Museum of Art and Archaeology or Special Collections

When you have to describe the physical properties of the piece and put it into a social and historical context:

  • you can start with Oxford Art Online to find background information about its context.
    • You can also use general reference resources to find this information. Oxford Reference Online lets you search multiple reference works simultaneously. 
Find descriptions of the piece (or art object) you chose:

Tip: Other museums or libraries may have descriptions of the piece (or art object) you are researching. If they don’t, they will have descriptions of similar or related objects. Reading these descriptions can help you learn more about their creators, the period, the uses, and social contexts. You can use this information to begin to contextualize your art object. Places to look include:

Using secondary sources to research specific art disciplines or mediums

Browse and search through journals and magazines on:
Find articles on:
Browse for and find secondary sources on:

* more guides on other art disciplnes and mediums witll be added to the Art guide and linked here.

 

Finding overviews of movements / periods / national art / techniques

  • Oxford Art Online is the best place to start. 
  • The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s (The Met) Heilbrunn “Timeline of Art History” pairs essays and works of art with chronologies, telling the story of art and global culture through the Museum’s collection.
  • The Smithsonian’s American Art Museum’s website The American Experience in the Classroom, presents its artworks in chronological order by era, placing the artworks into the context of important events in US history, and presents artworks thematically.

Using primary sources 

*this section is under construction 

  • Indigenous Histories and Cultures in North America presents a unique insight into interactions between Indigenous Peoples in North America and European colonists from their earliest contact to the mid- to late-twentieth century.
  • The section Visual Resources contains a wealth of visual material, including photographs, illustrations and paintings of Indigenous Peoples in North America. There are some examples in the collection of artwork and photographs from an Indigenous perspective, but the majority of visual material is from a colonial source.

a graphic of a stylized sun

Background information resources

Artist Biographies (lesser known artists)

These are books in Ellis Reference Section

Subjects: Art & Art History