Art and Design Research Guide: Art Websites

Accredited by the National Association of Schools of Art and Design, APSU’s art + design program offers studies in drawing, digital media, graphic design, illustration, painting, photography, ceramics, printmaking, sculpture, and art education. The Department is housed in the College of Arts and Letters and consists of 16 full time faculty for approximately 275 students. Three on campus galleries also support the Art & Design programs. The Department of Art + Design recently moved into a new art and design building. The Department of Art + Design also houses the Goldsmith Press and Rare Type Collection, an exceptionally large collection of wood letterforms.

​The Archives of American Art is the world’s preeminent and most widely used research center dedicated to collecting, preserving, and providing access to primary sources that document the history of the visual arts in America. Founded in Detroit in 1954 by Edgar P. Richardson, then Director of the Detroit Institute of Arts, and Lawrence A. Fleischman, a Detroit executive and active young collector, the initial goal of the Archives was to serve as microfilm repository; this mission expanded quickly to collecting and preserving original material and in 1970, the Archives joined the Smithsonian Institution, sharing its mandate: the increase and diffusion of knowledge.

ArtBabble.org is an online community that uses videos to discuss, share and celebrate the world we know as art. Launched by the Indianapolis Museum of Art, the site features videos of cultural highlights from more than 20 organizations, including the Museum of Modern Art, New York City, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam, and most recently the High Museum of Art, Atlanta. —Cherie Haas

Art21, a nonprofit organization, gives viewers unparalleled access to the artist's voice through projects such as the Peabody Award-winning "Art in the Twenty-First Century" series

Artnet is the leading online resource for the international art market, and the destination to buy, sell, and research art online. Founded in 1989 with the goal of bringing transparency to the art world, artnet’s comprehensive suite of products offers a variety of art market resources to our audience of collectors, dealers, and art enthusiasts.

Founded in 1902, ARTnews is the oldest and most widely circulated art magazine in the world. Its readership of 180,000 in 124 countries includes collectors, dealers, historians, artists, museum directors, curators, connoisseurs, and enthusiasts. Published in print four times a year, it reports on the art, people, issues, trends, and events shaping the international art world. The magazine’s thousands of contributors have included Alfred Barr, Bernard Berenson, Kenneth Clark, Robert Coles, Arthur Danto, Carlos Fuentes, Pete Hamill, Aldous Huxley, Steve Martin, Louise Nevelson, Bob Nickas, Francine Prose, Harold Rosenberg, David Salle, Jean-Paul Sartre, and William Carlos Williams.

The Center for Creative Photography, University of Arizona, is recognized as one of the world's finest academic art museums and study centers for the history of photography. The Center opened in 1975, following a meeting between the University President John Schaefer and Ansel Adams. Beginning with the archives of five living master photographers—Ansel Adams, Wynn Bullock, Harry Callahan, Aaron Siskind, and Frederick Sommer—the collection has grown to include 270 archival collections. Among these are some of the most recognizable names in 20th century North American photography: W. Eugene Smith, Lola Alvarez Bravo, Edward Weston, and Garry Winogrand. Altogether there are over eight million archival objects in the Center's collection including negatives, work prints, contact sheets, albums, scrapbooks, correspondence, writings, audiovisual materials and memorabilia. In addition to whole archival collections the Center also actively acquires individual photographs by modern and contemporary photographers. There are currently more than 90,000 works by over 2,200 photographers. A library of books, journals, and exhibition and auction catalogs including many rare publications plus an extensive oral history collection complements the archival and fine print collections. The combined art, archival, and research collections at the Center provide an unparalleled resource for research, exhibitions, loans, and traveling exhibitions.

The J. Paul Getty Trust is a cultural and philanthropic institution dedicated to the presentation, conservation, and interpretation of the world’s artistic legacy. Through the collective and individual work of its constituent programs—the Getty Conservation Institute, the Getty Foundation, the J. Paul Getty Museum, and the Getty Research Institute—the Getty pursues its mission in Los Angeles and throughout the world, serving both the general interested public and a wide range of professional communities in order to promote a vital civil society through an understanding of the visual arts.

Formerly a royal palace, the Louvre has embraced the history of France for eight centuries. Intended as a universal museum since its inception in 1793, its collections—among the finest in the world—span several thousands of years and a territory that extends from America to the confines of Asia. Divided among eight departments, these collections feature works admired throughout the globe, including the Mona Lisa, the Winged Victory of Samothrace, and the Venus de Milo. With nearly ten million visitors in 2012, the Louvre is the world’s most visited museum.

At The Museum of Modern Art and MoMA PS1, we celebrate creativity, openness, tolerance, and generosity. We aim to be inclusive places—both onsite and online—where diverse cultural, artistic, social, and political positions are welcome. We’re committed to sharing the most thought-provoking modern and contemporary art, and hope you will join us in exploring the art, ideas, and issues of our time.

The National Gallery of Art was conceived and given to the people of the United States by Andrew W. Mellon (1855–1937). Mellon was a financier and art collector from Pittsburgh who came to Washington in 1921 to serve as secretary of the treasury. During his years of public service he came to believe that the United States should have a national art museum equal to those of other great nations. In 1936 Mellon wrote to President Franklin D. Roosevelt offering to donate his superb art collection for a new museum and to use his own funds to construct a building for its use. With the president’s support, Congress accepted Mellon’s gift, which included a sizable endowment, and established the National Gallery of Art in March 1937. Construction began that year at a site on the National Mall along Constitution Avenue between Fourth and Seventh Street NW, near the foot of Capitol Hill.

When Tate first opened its doors to the public in 1897 it had just one site, displaying a small collection of British artworks. Today we have four major sites and the national collection of British art from 1500 to the present day and international modern and contemporary art, which includes nearly 70,000 artworks.

The V&A is the world’s leading museum of art and design, housing a permanent collection of over 2.3 million objects that span over 5,000 years of human creativity. The Museum holds many of the UK's national collections and houses some of the greatest resources for the study of architecture, furniture, fashion, textiles, photography, sculpture, painting, jewellery, glass, ceramics, book arts, Asian art and design, theatre and performance.