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 Articles and Databases and then Image Collections in the Content-Specific column.
Specialized databases have advanced search capabilities, provide more information about specific images, and deliver more focused results than a general search engine like Google. When using a general search engine, like Google Images, use advanced image search when possible. Google advanced image search allows you to narrow your search based on things like usage rights, size and more.
Searching for images is different from searching for text sources. Finding an image with 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.
Creator: Edward Hopper; North American, 1882 -1967, (Artist).
Title: People in the Sun.
Work type (medium): Painting, oil on canvas.
Repository: Smithsonian American Art Museum.
Style, school: American realism, post-impressionism.