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Art and Art History Research Guide

Background research

Background research can help you:

  • narrow down a broad theme into a smaller topic
  • learn the basics of your topic
  • develop a list of keywords to use when searching for more sources
  • develop a research question and/or thesis statement

Starter databases

Starter databases:

  • simple, browseable databases meant to help students with background research
  • often contain credible reference articles, but can also have viewpoint essays
  • a good alternative or supplement to Wikipedia

Best starter databases for Art and Art History topics:

Find Books Using the Library Catalog

How to Find Art Books in the Library

Tip 1: Use keywords to search the catalog. For example:

  • Baroque
  • iconography
  • "Frida Kahlo"
  • surrealism
  • tapestry
  • livres d'arte
Tip 2: Browse the N section of the Stacks on the second floor of the library.
  • N  Visual Arts
  • NA  Architecture
  • NB  Sculpture
  • NC  Drawing/Design/Illustration
  • ND  Painting
  • NE  Print Media
  • NK  Decorative Arts
  • NX  Arts in General

Reference Books (for use in the library only)

Leonardo da Vinci : the complete paintings in detail
Mind's eye : masterworks on paper from David to Cézanne
Doris Salcedo
Cubism : the Leonard A. Lauder Collection
Contemporary Chinese art : a history, 1970s>2000s
The memory of time : contemporary photographs from the National Gallery of Art
The first Georgians : art & monarchy, 1714-1760
30,000 years of art : the story of human creativity across time & space.
Color : American photography transformed
Art as history : calligraphy and painting as one
Max Weber : an American Cubist in Paris and London, 1905-15
Jeff Koons : a retrospective
Remaking tradition : modern art of Japan from the Tokyo National Museum
A visual dictionary of decorative and domestic arts
Give me life : iconography and identity in East LA murals

Books to Borrow

Ceramic art
Protest art
Black artists in America : from civil rights to the bicentennial
Blk art : the audacious legacy of Black artists and models in Western art
When Harry met Pablo : Truman, Picasso, and the Cold War politics of modern art
Appreciation post : towards an art history of Instagram
Copy machine manifestos : artists who make zines
Art firsts : the story of art in 30 pioneering works
Your brain on art : how the arts transform us
Color in art
Digital art
How Banksy saved art history
Art monsters : unruly bodies in feminist art
Juan de Pareja : Afro-Hispanic painter in the age of Velázquez

E-Books

AI and the art market
A New Antiquity : Art and Humanity As Universal, 1400-1600
Dismantling the patriarchy, bit by bit : art, feminism, and digital technology
Transmodern : an art history of contact, 1920-60
Censored Art Today.
A little history of art
Interpreting Art
Art + Climate = Change II.
ArtQuake : The Most Disruptive Works in Modern Art.
The creative instigator's handbook : a DIY guide to making social change through art
The unforgettables : expanding the history of American art
Art works : how organizers and artists are creating a better world together
'Race Is Everything' : Art and Human Difference