Research Guides: Fiber & Material Studies Research Guide: Images

Artstor This link opens in a new window
Artstor is on the JSTOR platform effective 8/1/24. Digital image gallery with millions of images of works of art from museums, galleries, and private collections, including the Art Institute of Chicago. Artstor also includes AIC Collections, images curated by the Flaxman Library specifically for use in teaching and research at SAIC. Click here for tips on how to use Workspace for organizing images.
Art Institute of Chicago: The Collection This link opens in a new window
The Art Institute's permanent collection. Includes images, basic information and often the publication history about works of art representing all areas of the collection.
CARLI Digital Collections This link opens in a new window
Core images include works from over 100 museums, including the Louvre, the Musée d’Orsay, the Uffizi, the Prado, the Kunsthistorisches Museum, museums in Athens, Rome, Stockholm, Berlin, and major museums in the USA.
Saskia Art Images This link opens in a new window
30,000 digital images of paintings, sculpture and architecture, including images from many important collections: the Prado, the Kunsthistorisches Museum, the Uffizi, and the Louvre as well as archaeological sites in Greece, Italy, Turkey and Egypt.
Underground & Independent Comics, Comix, & Graphic Novels This link opens in a new window
Scholarly, primary source on adult comic books and graphic novels. Begins with the first underground comix (1960s) to the works of modern sequential artists, and contains more than 75,000 pages of comics and graphic novels, plus interviews, criticism, and journal articles that document the continual growth and evolution of this artform.
Vogue Archive This link opens in a new window
Contains the entire run of Vogue magazine (US edition), from the first issue in 1892 to the current month, reproduced in high-resolution color page images. Every page, advertisement, cover and fold-out has been included, with rich indexing enabling you to find images by garment type, designer and brand names

AIGA design archives
Selections from AIGA's annual design competitions.
ARCHNET
Images & resources related to the built environment of the Muslim world.
Bayerische Staatsbibliothek Digital Collections
English-language portal to browse the Bavarian State Library's digitized collections.
Bayerische Staatsbibliothek Image Search
Image-based similarity searches images identified from 2,311,060 digitized works of the Bavarian State Library, published between the 9th and the 20th century.
BnF Gallica
Bibliothèque nationale de France + a few related collections (e.g.; INHA (the national library for the history of art) includes some full text + images.
Burnham Library Architectural Images
Elevations, floorplans and photographs of the built environment from the Ryerson & Burnham Libraries.
Canadian Centre for Architecture (CCA)
Includes exhibition images, which are often annotated.
Catena
Digital archive of historic gardens & landscapes
Chicago Design Archive
Society of Typographic Arts
Chicago Collections
Incorporate images of Chicago region's built environment from local university & archival collections.
Ecole des Beaux-Arts de Paris
Search the collections inherited from the Royal Academies, which include donations and student works until 1968.
e.rara
Digitized rare books from Swiss libraries.
Getty Search Tools and Databases
Includes digital access to Getty projects, e.g. Open Content Program (images), Research Portal, Photo Archive, BHA/RILA, AATA, and more.
Hermitage Museum Research Portal
Includes high resolution images of the objects in the Hermitage.
Library of Congress: Architecture, Design & Historic Preservation
Includes these architectural drawings and photographs collections: Historic American Buildings Survey 1933-present ; Architecture, Design & Engineering Drawings; and Gottscho-Schleisner Collection.
MoMA Research Resources
Search for images in collection, DADABASE for library holdings, plus other archival collections.
RIBApix
From the Royal Institute of British Architects.
Ryerson & Burnham Digital Collections
Curated selections of historic publications, archival materials, and artists’ works drawn from our library shelves.
SAIC Digital Collections
Curated selections of historic publications, archival materials, student theses, and artists’ works drawn from our library shelves or from other campus special collections.
Sanborn Insurance Maps INDEX for Chicago
Index to the Chicago Sanborn maps from the Chicago Public Library.

Sanborn Insurance Maps for Illinois This link opens in a new window
Digital collections of maps from Illinois from 1867 to 1970, browsable by city. SAIC use only: login with ARTIC username & password.

Saudi Aramco World Digital Image Archive
40,000+ images in one of the world's largest archives specializing in historic and current images of the Middle East and the Islamic world. Free: registration required.
Smithsonian Institution | Drawings
Drawings of furniture, interiors, jewelry, wallpaper, and more from the Cooper Hewitt, Freer Gallery, Hirshhorn, and other Smithsonian Museum collections.
VADS: Architecture
VADS images of architecture, design, and monuments.

Finding Architectural Drawings of Chicago-Area Buildings

Elevations and floorplans can be found in a number of places within Ryerson & Burnham Libraries. Explore these options before you visit.

Search Ryerson & Burnham libraries digital collections. Type architectural drawing and an architect's last name into the search box
Browse the finding aids to locate drawings at Ryerson that are not digitized.
1. choose "Burnham Library-University of Illinois Project to Microfilm..." from the menu, and then select the document with "Appendix" at the top of the page in order to view a list of architects and buildings included in this microfilm project of over 11,000 drawings
2. browse the finding aid list to find other architects and collections in addition to the microfilm project
Check architectural magazines. Search the Avery Index to Architectural Periodicals and the Burnham Index (in Ryerson, call no. Z5944.U5 B87) to identify citations. Both libraries have many of these magazines. Inland Architect is particularly good for early Chicago building plans.
Check individual archival collections at Ryerson. Browse digitized items by collection here
The museum’s Architecture and Design Department collection of drawings is inventoried and accessible by librarians at Ryerson & Burnham libraries; check contact information & hours.
Search either Flaxman or Ryerson's catalog for books on specific architects or buildings; sometimes plans and drawings are included. Particularly useful are the Historic American Buildings Survey books, also digitized by the Library of Congress here.
Additionally, the Chicago History Museum has plans and drawings for Chicago-area buildings.

Free Images

Google Images
• Advanced Image Search
• Search by Image (reverse image search)
Flickr
• Flickr's App Garden
• Creative Commons–licensed images on Flickr
Burst
Burst is a free stock photo site that is powered by Shopify. Photos are offered under the Creative Commons Zero (CC0) license, you can use the photos for any purpose.
Negative Space
A community of photographers who want to share their work: free high-resolution images without any restrictions.
Kaboompics
Popular source of free images for lifestyle, interior design and more.
Library of Congress Prints & Photographs
more...less...
Collection of free images includes more than 900 WPA posters, more than 3,000 American art illustrations, 400 snapshots taken by the song-collecting Lomax family, and hundreds of color photographs taken during a survey of the Russian Empire between 1905 and 1915.
LUNA Commons
Interface searches across public collections which use the LUNA multimedia cataloging system.

New York Public Library Digital Gallery This link opens in a new window
Provides access to over 700,000 images digitized from primary sources and printed rarities in the collections of The New York Public Library.

OpenGLAM-Cultural Institutions' Collections

Commercial Stock Image Sites

Getty Images
Getty's huge stock image database are mostly available for a price; some resources are available at no charge.
Shutterstock

lmages & Copyright

Chicago Community Areas and Neighborhoods This link opens in a new window
A guide to Chicago's neighborhoods and 77 officially designated community areas through Chicago-area archival collections from Explore Chicago Collections.

Chicago Daily News Photographs
Over 55,000 images of urban life between 1902 and 1933 by photographers employed by the Chicago Daily News, then one of Chicago's leading newspapers.
Chicago "L".org
A visual history of various CTA el platform and destination signs from over the years.
Chicago Past
Tumblr blog of photographs from Chicago history with source links, and tags for street location.
Chicago Screenshots
Tumblr blog of stills from films and videos shot in Chicago from 1960s-present

Chicago Tribune (1985 - Current) This link opens in a new window
Full text articles from the Chicago Tribune dating from the first issue to Dec. 31, 1985. SAIC use only: login with ARTIC username & password.
Chicago Tribune Archive (1849-2014) This link opens in a new window
Full text articles from the Chicago Tribune dating from the first issue to Dec. 31, 1985. SAIC use only: login with ARTIC username & password.

Encyclopedia of Chicago
Photographs, biographies, essays, art, music, maps and documents on all things Chicago
The Lakefront Anonymous Art Gallery
An article and image gallery about outdoor stone carving on the limestone of Chicago's lakefront.
Public Collectors: Chicago
Local digital archive of ephemera/public culture. Link points to Chicago tag on a Tumblr blog.
Roadside Art Online: Western Avenue Art Gallery
A wide range of street art from Western Avenue and the general vicinity.
Vivian Maier
Recently discovered Chicago street photographer, 1950s-60s.