LibGuides: Art History: Key Resources

Key Resources for Art History

The following databases contain a variety of material, including journal articles, for your specific subject area. The brief descriptions beneath the titles will explain what each hold. To access, click on the title.

American Periodicals This link opens in a new window
American periodicals published between 1740 and 1940, including special interest and general magazines, literary and professional journals, children's and women's magazines and many other historically-significant periodicals. Combines collections from American Periodicals Series Online (APS Online) and American Periodicals from the Center for Research (APCRL).
Art and Architecture Archive This link opens in a new window
A full-text archive of magazines comprising key research material in the fields of art and architecture, dating from the 1860s. Includes over 65 consumer and trade magazines focusing on fine art, decorative arts, architecture, interior design, industrial design, and photography. Issues are presented as searchable full-colour page images.
Art Full Text This link opens in a new window
An art research database covering a wide range of topics, from fine, decorative, and commercial art to photography, folk art, film, and architecture. Provides full-text access to over 320 periodicals dating back to 1977, an index of over 600 more periodicals (including 280 peer-reviewed journals), and abstracts for more than 14,0000 art dissertations. Art Full Text also indexes art reproductions from these periodicals, providing examples of various art styles and movements, and has its own subject-specific thesaurus.
ARTstor This link opens in a new window
A searchable database of over 2 million curated digital images and associated catalogue data, drawn from museums, archives, libraries, scholars, and artist’s collections across the world. The content spans eras cultures, and disciplines, and the images have been rights-cleared for use in education and research.
Features: Image analysis and comparison tool, quick group image download to PowerPoint
Humanities Index This link opens in a new window
An international research database for arts and humanities, indexing articles from over 370 scholarly journals, weekly magazines, and quality newspapers from the UK, the US, and other English-speaking countries. Updated monthly, with coverage from 1962.
Subjects: Architecture, Art, Cultural Studies, Film, Gender studies, History, Linguistics, Literature, Music, Philosophy, Religion.
British Museum Images This link opens in a new window
One of the most comprehensive collections of prints and drawings in world culture and history.
Illustrated London News Historical Archive 1842-2003 This link opens in a new window
The full facsimile run of the world’s most iconic illustrated newspaper.
Independent Voices This link opens in a new window
A digital collection of alternative press newspapers, magazines and journals from the special collections of academic institutions. Materials produced by feminists, dissident GIs, campus radicals, Native Americans, anti-war activists, Black Power advocates, Hispanics, LGBT activists, the extreme right-wing press and alternative literary magazines during the latter half of the 20th century.
JSTOR This link opens in a new window
Provides access to more than 12 million journal articles, books, images, and primary sources in 75 disciplines primarily in the humanities and social sciences. Also includes: 34,000 research reports from more than 140 policy institutes on climate change, cybersecurity, energy policy, international relations, terrorism, and various public health issues. Primary sources from important and rare collections from libraries, museums, archives, and historical societies around the world including Global Plants, 19th Century British Pamphlets and Struggles for Freedom: Southern Africa. Thematic collections focusing on emerging areas of research includes Lives of Literature, Security Studies, and Sustainability.
Kanopy (now via Library Search) This link opens in a new window
You can now look for Kanopy films using Library Search. The benefit of this is that it will also search across our other film collections, to make sure that you don't miss out. Simply enter your search terms and select 'Video' from the drop down list at the end of the Library Search bar.
Nineteenth Century UK Periodicals This link opens in a new window
Covers the events, lives, values and themes that shaped the 19th century world. It's mainly based on the repositories of the British Library and the National Library of Scotland.
Oxford Art Online (Includes Grove Art Online) This link opens in a new window
Allows users to access and search Grove Art Online, the Oxford Companion to Western Art, the Concise Oxford Dictionary of Art Terms and the Encyclopedia of Aesthetics.
Picture Post This link opens in a new window
Complete archive from its first issue in 1938 to its last in 1957.
Punch Historical Archive 1841 to 1992 This link opens in a new window
Access to 150 years of Punch, the great satirical magazine
Scopus This link opens in a new window
Scopus is a multidisciplinary abstract and citation database, which provides access to academic journals, books, conference proceedings, and patents from 1788–present.
Advanced Features: citation analysis, author profiles, journal metrics; data export and analysis, search alerts.
Subjects: Chemistry, Physics, Mathematics and Engineering ; Life and Health Sciences ; Social Sciences, Psychology and Economics ; Biological, Agricultural and Environmental Sciences.
VADS This link opens in a new window
An online resource for visual arts. Access to over 100,000 images that are freely available and copyright cleared for use in learning, teaching and research in the UK.
Victorian Britain This link opens in a new window
Access to expert articles, posters, newspapers, illustrations and more on the Victorian era.
Vogue Archive This link opens in a new window
The entire run of Vogue magazine (US edition) from 1892 to present. Subjects include textiles and dress, fashion history, popular culture, gender studies, photography and graphic design, marketing and advertising.
Web of Science This link opens in a new window
A multidisciplinary abstract and citation database of academic journal articles, books and conference proceedings covering all subjects, dating back to 1900. Web of Science consists of multiple different databases including the Science Citation Index, Social Sciences Citation Index and Arts & Humanities Citation Index. Features: citation analysis, researcher profiles, journal metrics, search alerts.
Women's Magazine Archive This link opens in a new window
Contains archives of the foremost titles of consumer magazines aimed at a female readership, including Good Housekeeping and Ladies’ Home Journal, which serve as canonical records of evolving assumptions about gender roles and cultural mores. In combination, the publications cover topics such as family life, home economics, health, careers, fashion, and culture.

Other resources

Art UK This link opens in a new window
The nation’s art online, in partnership with over 3,000 public art collections. There are already over 200,000 artworks on Art UK. The art is from museums, universities, town halls, hospitals and even a lighthouse.
Google Art Project This link opens in a new window
The Art Project is a unique collaboration with some of the world’s most acclaimed art institutions to enable people to discover and view artworks online in extraordinary detail. Users can 'walk' around galleries using the Google Maps 'street view' technology, and view artworks and collections.