Welcome to the Fall 2025 Art History Methods (190W) Research Guide! This guide will help you navigate tools for finding background information, articles, interviews, exhibition catalogs, and art books for a solid foundation on your final papers and bibliographies. Remember: you can always make a one-on-one appointment with me if you need help!
Slides from the library presentation are available by clicking here.
A Short Guide to Writing about Art
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Art history is a vast discipline - geographically, historically, and intellectually. The canon continues to be redefined as histories of art in regions that had previously been ignored or marginalized are brought into the mainstream. How to keep up with, or identify, all of the core literature of this field? Getting started with topical overviews and summaries written by art historians and experts through library encyclopedias or dictionaries is a great starting point, followed by looking at published bibliographies (comprehensive lists pointing you to published materials on a topic).
In the library workshop session, we took a look at Oxford Art Online and Oxford Bibliographies. For a list of additional handbooks, encyclopedias, and reference sources for art history visit the "getting started page" here on the Art History Library Guide.
Use these tools to search by keywords and uncover art monographs, edited volumes, critical texts, exhibition catalogs, and more.
Jean-Michel Basquiat : art and objecthood / curated by Dieter Buchhart
Keith Haring/Jean-Michel Basquiat
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Mary Cassatt / Griselda Pollock.
Refugees and Migrants in Contemporary Film, Art and Media
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There are many different academic and art journals and magazines covering different subjects, geopolitical topics, and time periods. Clicking any of the links on these larger umbrella keywords will give you a list of some of the journals in that particular area. You can also consult a fuller list by clicking here.
Explore some of these visual-arts specific library databases for research on artists, movements, design, and visual culture. Remember to evaluate the results list! Check whether you’re reading a critical analysis/academic article, an artist interview, an exhibition review, a dissertation, a magazine article, or a book review. Use database filters and read abstracts to understand the source before using it.
Access full-text academic journals and books through Project MUSE and JSTOR—essential for art history, theory, and cultural studies research. Remember to evaluate the results list! Check whether you’re reading a critical analysis/academic article, an artist interview, an exhibition review, a dissertation, a magazine article, or a book review. Use database filters and read abstracts to understand the source before using it. You can also visit a full list of all the UCI Library Databases listed A-Z by clicking here.
Provides access to scholarly journals, primarily in the humanities and social sciences. In addition to journal articles, users can access book chapters, ebooks, and primary source documents.
A scholarly, multidisciplinary database that provides access to journal articles covering a range of topics, including archaeology, area studies, astronomy, biology, chemistry, civil engineering, electrical engineering, ethnic & multicultural studies, food science & technology, general science, geography, geology, law, mathematics, mechanical engineering, music, physics, psychology, religion & theology, women's studies, and other fields. It also indexes monographs, reports, and conference proceedings.
A broad collection of journals and ebooks with emphasis on humanities and social sciences. Publishers include numerous university presses and scholarly societies.