LibGuides: Art and Design: Searching for images online

Searching for images and multimedia online

The links below take you to museum websites and other internet resources that provide free, openly licensed images and other content for you to use in papers and presentations. The websites usually provide specific information on how to cite and reproduce the images, but you may have to search for it.

ArtSTOR public collections
ArtSTOR is a subscription database, but they do provide free access to some of their collections. Read more about how to search and use their images here.
Google Image Search (Open License)
From this Google Advanced Search page, select the appropriate search parameter from the "usage rights" drop down menu.
Getty Open Content Program
"The Getty makes available, without charge, all available digital images to which the Getty holds the rights or that are in the public domain to be used for any purpose. No permission is required."
Open content-Metropolitan Museum of Art
Please see the link to learn how to determine which of the digital images in the MET's collection are open access.
National Museum of African American History & Culture
Thousands of digital items from the NMAAHC's collection. Images are released CCo, meaning you can use, transform, and share them without requesting permission.
VADS African and Asian Visual Artists Archive
Aavaa had grown to become the most comprehensive slide archive of contemporary visual art by artists of African and Asian descent working in the UK since the post-war period.
Freer | Sackler Asian art images
The Smithsonian Freer and Sackler galleries have digitized more than 40,000 images from their collections of Asian art, most of which are available in high-resolution and free of copyright restrictions for noncommercial use.
UbuWeb
UbuWeb started in 1996 and contains a large collection of film, poetry, avant-garde music recordings, and video art and more, as well as a repository of papers on audio performance, conceptual art, and poetry.
New York Public Library Open Digital Collections
"NYPL Digital Gallery provides free and open access to over 800,000 images digitized from the The New York Public Library's vast collections, including illuminated manuscripts, historical maps, vintage posters, rare prints, photographs and more."
Ubuweb
A vast resource for avant-garde poetry, art, film, video, and audio
Europeana
Artworks, artifacts, books, videos and sounds from across Europe.
Wellcome Library images
A major resource for medical, biomedical, and social history images, both historical and contemporary, Wellcome Images contains over 170 000 images, all available for use under a CC license.
Flickr: Creative Commons
Search here to find Flickr photos that have been licensed under a Creative Commons license. Click on the image license link to learn more about the restrictions for an individual image.