Guides: Images: finding, using and referencing: Websites and directories

Art, Theatre, Design and Architecture

Artcyclopedia
Artcyclopedia aims to become the definitive and most effective guide to museum-quality fine art on the Internet. They have compiled a comprehensive index of every artist represented at hundreds of museum sites, image archives, and other online resources.
Art Images for College Teaching
AICT is intended primarily to disseminate images of art and architectural works in the public domain on a free-access, free-use basis to all levels of the educational community, as well as to the public at large. The images displayed on this site have been photographed on location by the author, (Allan Kohl) who consents to their use in any application that is both educational and non-commercial in nature.
Art UK
Art UK is the successor to Your Paintings. It is a joint initiative between the Public Catalogue Foundation (now known as Art UK), 3,000 museums and other art collections, and the BBC.
Beazley Archive
Sir John Beazley's archive, a classical art research centre containing images from classical art, including pottery, sculpture and inscriptions, and a dictionary.
British Cartoon Archive
The British Cartoon Archive is dedicated to the history of British cartooning over the last two hundred years. The BCA holds the artwork for over 200,000 British editorial, socio-political, and pocket cartoons, supported by large collections of comic strips, newspaper cuttings, books and magazines.
Country Life Picture Library
Search the collection for images of country houses and gardens, interiors and architectural details, historic buildings and churches, sporting and social events, as well as all aspects of country life.
Paul Oliver Vernacular Architecture Library
The site comprises over 20,000 images taken by Professor Paul Oliver MBE over a period of more than 50 years.
RIBAPIX
RIBA’s image library of over 100,000 photographs and drawings
from the RIBA Collections, available to view, buy and download.
Royal Shakespeare Company
From famous actors in their first roles to iconic theatre productions; backstage images to Broadway transfers; young Romeos to aging kings; our collection of past and present production photos is one of the most extensive single theatre archives in the world.
VADS
VADS is an established and comprehensive resource for visual arts. Its archive includes 100,000 images that are freely available and copyright cleared for use in learning, teaching and research in the UK

Medicine, Health, Sciences, Natural history and Geography

Biodiversity Heritage Library
Open Access biodiversity literature from natural history and botanical libraries in the USA.
Genomic Science Image Gallery
Images from the Genomic Science program and other U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Biological and Environmental Research (BER) programs. Also includes archived images from the Human Genome Project and Microbial Genomics.
Geograph Britain and Ireland
The Geograph Britain and Ireland project aims to collect geographically representative photographs and information for every square kilometre of Great Britain and Ireland under Creative Commons licence.
NASA Image Galleries
Official NASA photographs from agency photographers chronicle what's making news across the agency, from launches and landings to important science announcements.
Public Health Image Library
A catalogue of images from the Center for Disease Control. Use by public health professionals, the media, laboratory scientists, educators, students, and the worldwide public for reference, teaching and presentations is encouraged.
Royal Geographical Society
The achievements and experiences of nineteenth and early twentieth century travellers and geographers are translated through the photographs, watercolours, sketches, maps and artefacts they brought back to the Royal Geographical Society, and still held in the RGS archives.
Science Fair Project Pictures
A small collection of public domain images suited for use in science projects
World Register of Marine Species (WoRMS) Photogallery
Illustrations and photographs of marine species.

History and Humanities

Historic England Archive
Find historical photos, drawings and reports
History of Medicine
Images from the History of Medicine (IHM) are from the historical collections of the U.S. National Library of Medicine. Here you’ll find image files of a wide variety of visual media including fine art, photographs, engravings, and posters that illustrate the social and historical aspects of medicine dating from the 15th to 21st century.
Wellcome Collection
117,000 images relating to the history of medicine.

Multi-disciplinary websites for finding free images

University Database Subscriptions

(You can download and save images from University of Lincoln subscription databases for use in assignments, Powerpoint presentations etc. However, our licence agreements with these providers generally prohibits the use and display of the images outside the University).

a-n This link opens in a new window
Some art work, exhibitions and artists.
Berg Fashion Library This link opens in a new window
Includes many images
Carl Giles Digital Archive This link opens in a new window
Artwork by cartoonist Carl Giles.
Digimap This link opens in a new window
Ordnance Survey emaps.
Drama Online This link opens in a new window
Images (stills from plays and filmed productions). You can then filter by playwright, genre and form, period, and theme.
John Johnson Collection, The This link opens in a new window
Colour images from the Bodle Library's John Johnson Collection of Printed Ephemera, offering unique insights into the changing nature of everyday life in the eighteenth, nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
Oxford Art Online (inc. Grove Art) This link opens in a new window
Contains some reference images of famous art works within articles.
Oxford Art Online offers access to the most authoritative, inclusive, and easily searchable online art resources available today. Through a single gateway, users can access and cross-search Oxford’s acclaimed, regularly updated art reference works: the Grove Dictionary of Art and the Benezit Dictionary of Artists. Grove Art is the foremost scholarly art encyclopedia, offering global coverage of visual culture, composed and expanded in collaboration with thousands of scholars and specialists around the world. Benezit offers unique information about the sale and collection of artists’ work, and it is one of the most comprehensive and definitive resources of artists’ biographies available. In addition, users can search and access Oxford art reference titles including the Encyclopedia of Aesthetics (2nd edition), The Oxford Companion to Western Art, and The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Art Terms.
SciFinder Scholar (CAS) This link opens in a new window
Images relating to Chemistry.
Access journals and patents across multiple disciplines and identify chemical substances and structures, names, and properties, including CAS Registry Numbers®. In addition, take advantage of the included structure drawing tool, powerful visualizations, a retrosynthesis planner, bioactivity data, and more. With an easy-to-use search interface, get started quickly and complete your research tasks with confidence.
Vogue Archive This link opens in a new window
A complete searchable archive of American Vogue, from the first issue in 1892 to the current month, reproduced in high-resolution color page images.
WGSN Fashion This link opens in a new window
Includes photographs and streetwear fashion.

Library, art gallery and museum collections

British Library
Accessible Flickr e-resource that enables exploration of over 1 million digitised images from the British Library. Copyright status is displayed below each image.
Digital Bodle
This page offers access to the digitised collections of the Bodle Library, University of Oxford.
Imperial War Museums
Explore around 800,000 items that tell the story of modern war and conflict, collected by the museum since 1917. IWM offers images of some works in its collection on a non commercial licence, mainly those out of copyright.
Library of Congress
The Prints and Photographs Online Catalog (PPOC) contains catalog records and digital images representing a rich cross-section of still pictures held by the Prints & Photographs Division and, in some cases, other units of the Library of Congress. The Library of Congress offers broad public access to these materials as a contribution to education and scholarship.
Science Museum
Material from Science Museum object and archival collections. Over 285,000 objects and 40,000 archival documents published online. Images available to download with full information on licensing and use.
Tate
The museums of the Tate Collective focus on modern and contemporary art as well as British art. Over 70,000 works of art can be viewed online and their digital archive contains artists' personal papers, photographs and correspondence.
York Museums Trust
The collections cover a vast array of subjects, probably the best known are social history, archaeology and fine art. Images of works in the collection are largely offered on a Creative Commons or Public Domain licence.
The National Gallery
The National Gallery houses the national collection of paintings in the Western European tradition from the 13th to the 19th centuries.