American Art

Keyword Searching

Keyword searching of the online catalog may be easier than specific LC (Library of Congress) searching, but the Library of Congress subject headings for your topic might include s= painting, American or painting, modern-19th century--united states (or sculpture or architecture in similar formats) or, depending on your topic, more specific searches such as s=united states capitol or s=trumbull, john or s=railroads in art. Unless you enter the search terms exactly right, however, you won't retrieve titles, so keyword is probably a better method. Keyword searching may turn up more titles, but you can quickly weed them out; be sure to take note of key authors for your topic and look for other books, exhibition catalogs, or periodical articles by them.

Periodical Searching

To locate periodical (magazine/journal) articles on your topic, you may search:

Art Index.
Art Index Retrospective
Bibliography of the History of Art
Grove Dictionary of Art Online
America: History and Life
Historical Abstracts
Poole's Plus: Digital Index of the 19th C.

Full-text, searchable E-journals on the Libraries Web page are also an important and growing feature. Look on the drop-down menu under Art or American Studies or History and you'll find many.

Return to the top

Reference Works

Important reference works include:

Dictionaries such as the Yale Dictionary of Art and Artists

Bibliographies such as Karpel, Arts in America, which is out of date but still very useful

Encyclopedias such as the new Grove Encyclopedia of American Art before 1914

Periodical indexes such as Index to 19th C. American Art Periodicals

Biographical dictionaries such as NYHS Dictionary of Arts in America 1564-1860

Collection catalogs such as American Paintings of the Eighteenth Century (National Gallery of Art.)

Return to the top

Images

Images/illustrations of art works can be found using painting indexes such as World Painting Index (blue books on the Ready Reference Shelves near the computer area). Look in the artist (or title volume if you want to search by a title/subject, then go to the artist specified in the artist volume, then to the number listed by the painting title to find a book in this library --the call numbers are penciled in.) There are many of these indexes to reproductions of works of art (sculpture and prints as well as paintings) on the top shelf of the Ready Reference Shelves. Images are also readily accessible via the growing number of museum or image web sites, many of which you can search by topic, artist, title, etc. Also try ARTstor, CAMIO, Google and the Grove.

Return to the top

Web Sites

For worldwide access to museums see the Virtual Library museums pages.

Inventory of American Painting (Smithsonian) has paintings executed before 1914. Be sure to look at the long view, which may include a bibliography.

Also at the Smithsonian the Smithsonian American Art Museum. Images of more than 4000 objects in the collections and exhibitions, with artist information.

National Portrait Gallery (Smithsonian) collection can be searched by artist (e.g. Paul Revere) or sitter (e.g. George Washington).

Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts is the oldest museum and art school in the U.S., with an outstanding collection of American art.

National Gallery of Art Search by artist or by topics such as portraits, genre, religious, landscapes, etc. A large image database.

Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco "the largest searchable art imagebase in the world" with more than 12,000 artists represented.

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston for a major collection of American artists, e.g. Trumbull, Sargent, Eakins and others.

The Library of Congress "American Memory" site and Prints and Photographs Division may also be useful.

The National Museum of Women in the Arts with some images online.

Close to home, the Reynolda House in Winston-Salem has one of the best collections of American art in the Southeast.

Return to the top