Visual Resources Collection

The mission of the Visual Resources Collection (VRC) is to support the pedagogical needs of the Department of the History of Art and Architecture faculty, students and staff.

Located on the 2nd floor of 11 Talbot Avenue, the VRC contains over 250,000 35mm slides, 4,000 photographs and Japanese scroll facsimiles, and digital images covering all periods and aspects of art and architectural history.

There are multiple resources available to support your studies in art history:

• Art and Art History Research Guide
  Tisch Library has an Art and Art History Research Guide, which will point you to many online resources.
• Trove
  Trove is an interactive study tool and digital image archive with images used in History of Art and Architecture Department courses. Users can study their course collections and create their own collections of images for study.
• ArtStor
  ArtStor, contains over a million images of art and architecture, and is available through a Tisch Library portal.
• Timeline of Art History
  The Metropolitan Museum of Art has an excellent interactive timeline of art history, which incorporates essays and chronologies with works of art from the museum's collection.
• Fair Use for Visual Arts
  Looking for information about fair use and copyright for images of art? College Art Association has an excellent online resource for understanding best practices.
• Smarthistory
  Smarthistory is a free resource for the study of art history created by art historians Beth Harris and Steven Zucker. It has over 1500 videos and essays on art and cultural history from the Paleolithic era to the 21st century, including the art of Africa, the Americas, Asia, Europe, and Oceania.

For more information on the VRC and assistance in getting started with these tools, please email Christine Cavalier, Visual Resources Manager.