Internet resources
Internet resources for art and design.
The following is a selection of publicly-accessible collections which you may find useful. Each collection meets one or more of the following criteria:
- Providing access to high quality images,
- Website terms and conditions permit use for private study or educational purposes,
- Being a nationally or internationally significant collection.
Remember that the exact permitted uses vary for each collection.
You should check each website’s terms and conditions or copyright information before reproducing any images.
Art gallery collections
Courtauld Institute of Art
40,000 images from the Courtauld Institute and Conway Library collections.
Louvre
This website provides access to various databases - some in French only, others available in English - including the Atlas database of 35,000 works of art exhibited in the world-famous Paris museum.
Metropolitan Museum of Art
Metropolitan Museum of Art: more than 400,000 high-resolution digital images of public domain works in the Museum's world-renowned collection may be downloaded directly from the Museum's website for non-commercial use-including in scholarly publications in any media-without permission from the Museum and without a fee. The number of available images will increase as new digital files are added on a regular basis. Works that are covered by the new policy are identified on the Museum's website with the acronym OASC (Open Access for Scholarly Content). The Museum provides access to images of art in its collection that it believes to be in the public domain and free of other known restrictions; these images are now available for scholarly use in any media.
Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York
Browse or search over 30,000 works from the museum’s collection.
National Gallery, London
View the Gallery’s collection of over 2,300 works online, with the ability to zoom in and view paintings in considerable detail.
National Portrait Gallery
Explore and search the online collections of the National Portrait Gallery in London.
Tate Gallery
Online database of the collections of Tate Britain, Tate Modern, Tate Liverpool and Tate St Ives, including many images and accompanying information.
V&A
The V&A (Victoria and Albert) Museum’s award-winning collections database. Contents include ceramics, fashion, furniture, glass, metalwork, paintings, photographs, prints, sculpture and textiles.
Other digital collections
IDE Virtual Design Museum
A collection of images of work by well-known designers and companies.
UbuWeb
UbuWeb is an independent resource dedicated to avant-garde arts, ethnopoetics, and outsider arts, including film, sound, music and dance. All materials on UbuWeb are made available for non-commercial and educational use only. All rights belong to the author(s). UbuWeb is free to access.
Visual Arts Database (VADS)
An archive of electronic information in the visual arts incorporating a growing number of image collections for educational use.
Visual Collections - images of art, history and culture
Over 300,000 images from 50 collections using Insight image handling software from Luna Imaging.
Europeana
Multimedia portal that allows you to search over 14 million items from museums, libraries, archives and other collections across Europe. These include images of paintings, drawings, maps, photos and museum objects as well as text, audio and video.
Library of Congress
Online catalogue of prints and photographs held by the United States Library of Congress.
LUNA Commons
Provides free access to high quality images from worldwide digital collections of reputable organizations such as galleries and museums, using the Luna Insight browser.
Materia
Dutch registration-based service providing free access to information on thousands of materials.
Stylepark
German registration-based service providing free access to information on thousands of design products and materials.