Skip to Main Content

Finding Images

This guide is designed to assist with locating images of artworks in various formats.

Welcome

A black and white photo of students in the Washington Square NYU Graduate Arts Center browsing room in 1935. There are three female students sitting in a half circle to the right of a bookcase reading materials and another older male is sitting to the left of the bookcase.

Washington Square NYU Graduate Arts Center. Interior, browsing Room. ca. 1935 Wurts Bros. (New York, NY). Collection of the Museum of the City of New York. MNY325118.

This guide is intended for artists, art historians, and researchers who need to locate visual resources for their scholarly or creative work. While this guide is geared towards searching for images of art, architecture, and design, NYU Libraries also provides access to many image databases that are not specific to the arts. These databases can be found by going to the Databases tab and then using the Types dropdown menu to select Image Collections. 

Getting Started

Searching for images is different from searching for text sources. Finding an image using text adds extra layers of meaning, and your search strategy should reflect this complexity. Search terms can describe the visual qualities of an image or artwork. Terms can also include important information attached to the image - this is called metadata.  

Search terms can include:

  • Artist’s name (creator).
  • Title of the work.
  • Institution or repository which houses the work.
  • Style, school or time period.
  • Type: advertising, architectural graphics, maps, or scientific illustration.
  • Concepts: fine art, painting, engraving, landscape, or portrait

For example, some possible search terms for this image are listed below:

Creator: Elisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun (French, Paris 1755–1842 Paris)

Title: Madame Grand (Noël Catherine Vorlée, 1761–1835)

Work type (medium): Painting, oil on canvas.

Repository: The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Style, school: Neoclassicism, Rococo, eighteenth-century French portraiture

Accessibility(opens in new window)