Image Collections from Your Library and the Internet
Consult the individual Sites for the most up-to-date copyright information and usage restrictions for images in these collections.
20th Century American Architecture & Interior Design: Photographs by Samuel Gottscho and William Schleisner, 1935-1955Contains over 29,000 images primarily of architectural subjects, including interiors and exteriors of homes, stores, offices, factories, historic buildings, and other structures. American Memory Project of the Library of Congress. Subjects are concentrated chiefly in the northeastern United States, especially the New York City area, and Florida." Subjects include "the homes of notable Americans... U.S. presidents... [and] the 1939-40 New York World's Fair." Searchable, and browsable by subject.
40 Centuries of ArchitectureEgyptian, Greek, Islamic, Romanesque, Roman, Gothic, Byzantine, and Armenian architecture. THAIS, Milan.
Artcyclopedia: The Fine Art Search EngineAn index to the online exhibits of thousands of artists, searchable by artist's name & browsable by movement, medium, subject of art, nationality of artist, or women artists. Entries include links to museum sites, image archives, & other online resources. The focus is primarily painting and sculpture, but a smattering of other media (architecture and decorative arts, for example) are represented. The site also has archived monthly articles on art, and a museum directory. (Can go to a list of architects if you Browse by "medium.")
ArtServeAustralian National University Professor Michael Greenhalgh's collection of images of "Art & Architecture mainly from the Mediterranean Basin, Japan and now India."
Cities and Buildings DatabaseThe University of Washington's collection of nearly 10,000 ancient to contemporary images is for use by students, faculty, and the academic community.
Digital Library for the Decorative Arts and Material CultureImages of furniture and decorative arts objects and digital facsimiles of books published on architecture, landscape architecture, and the decorative arts. Includes books by Robert Adam, Asher Benjamin, and Owen Jones. Chipstone Foundation and UW-Madison.
EBSCO Image SearchYou can search for historical images from Ebsco. Be sure to check mark the Historical Photos box. Tip --use a keyword search string. Example: "Civil War" and America
Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS) and the Historic American Engineering Record (HAER)Collections document achievements in architecture, engineering, & design in the United States & its territories through a comprehensive range of building types & engineering technologies including diverse examples (Pueblo of Acoma to F.L. Wright bldgs). Administered since 1933 through cooperative agreements with the National Park Service, the Library of Congress, and the private sector, ongoing programs of the National Park Service have recorded America's built environment in multiformat surveys comprising more than 350,000 measured drawings, large-format photographs, and written histories for more than 35,000 historic structures and sites dating from Pre-Columbian times to the twentieth century.
Life Photo ArchiveSearch millions of photographs from the LIFE photo archive, stretching from the 1750s to today. Most were never published and are now available for the first time through the joint work of LIFE and Google.
New York Public Library Digital Image CollectionThe NYPL Digital Gallery, launched in 2004, consist of more than 350,000 images from the collections (print and art) of the Public Library. Included in the collection are 16th century maps of Dutch explorers in the New World, portraits from George Caitlin
NYPL Digital GalleryNYPL Digital Gallery provides access to over 600,000 images digitized from primary sources and printed rarities in the collections of The New York Public Library, including illuminated manuscripts, historical maps, vintage posters, rare prints and more.
Philadelphia Architects & Buildings“As of July 6, 2008, the American Architects and Buildings database contains more than 263,609 projects and buildings, 23,120 architects, engineers and contractors, and over 124,886 images.” Includes structures primarily in Philadelphia, Bucks, Chester, Delaware and Montgomery Counties, all the Philadelphia Historical Commission list of significant buildings, and the Pennsylvania Historical & Museum Commission’s inventory of historic structures. All local buildings represented in the Athenæum and the University of Pennsylvania architectural collections, as well as the original architectural holdings of such institutions as the Historical Society of Pennsylvania and the Library Company of Philadelphia are included in the database.
Picture Collection (The)The New York Public Library's collection of 30,000 images from pre-1923 books, magazines, newspapers, photographs, prints, and postcards.
Web Gallery of Art"The Web Gallery of Art is a virtual museum and searchable database of European painting and sculpture of the Gothic, Renaissance and Baroque periods."
