Images: Visual Arts

California:

Getty Open Content Images

• The Open Content Images Collection provides public domain image access to many image sources!
• Image types: photographs, visual materials, digitized manuscripts, vessels, sculpture, coins and more.

National & International:

Metropolitan Museum

• Discover thousands of images from the Met collections, many of which can be download and used. 
• Their Open Access Artworks portal provides more than 375,000 hi-res images of public-domain works from the collection.
• Image types: a variety visual arts and media (painting, photography, sculpture, prints & drawing, etc.)

MOMA: Museum of Art 

• More than 88,000 works are currently available online and over 26,000 artists!
• Image types: a variety visual art and media (painting, photography, sculpture, prints & drawings, etc.)

Rijksmuseum Images

• High resolution images of paintings in museum collections.
• Image types: mainly paintings.

Smithsonian Institution 

• Over 16 million records of museum objects, archives, and library materials including thousands of online images.
• To narrow by the art collection only, click here.
• Image types: drawings, prints, photographs, ceramics, painting, textiles, and metalwork.

Yale Center for British Art Collections Online

• +100,000 searchable images of art owned by the center. Some listings include bibliographies related to the work.
• Image types: paintings, drawings, prints, and sculpture.

California:

Calisphere

• Gateway to California's remarkable digital collections! Free access to unique and historically important artifacts
• These have been digitized by all 10 UC campuses and other libraries, archives, museums throughout California.
• Image types: photographs, paintings, artists' books, drawings & prints, and more. 

National & International:

Asia Art Archive

• A growing digital archive of primary source material culled by individual art practitioners and researchers in cities across Asia.
• Image types:

British Library (Flickr Commons Collection)

• Access millions of public domain images. Even a Cat Collection!
• Image types: photographs, architecture, prints, posters, maps, and more.

Europeana

• Europeana works with thousands of European archives, libraries, and museums to share cultural heritage
• Their digital collections are extensive with a range of image resources in art, fashion, archaeology, manuscripts, photography, and more!
• Image types: search their Art Collection to find paintings, drawings, engravings, and sculpture

Gallica

• Gallica is the digital library of the Bibliothèque nationale de France (BnF) and includes a robust digital image collection.
• Beyond visual art images, you'll also find many images related to performing arts as well as maps and plans. 
• Image types: prints & drawings, poster designs, and more.

Library of Congress: Photo & Prints Catalog

• The Prints and Photographs Online Catalog (PPOC) contains digital images representing still pictures held by the Prints & Photographs Division of ht Library of Congress and offers broad public access to these digital images that are national and international in scope.
• Example collections : performing arts posters, daguerreotypes, Japanese prints, pre-1915, African American Photographs Assembled for 1900 Paris Exhibition; Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Color Photographs, among many others.
• Image types: posters, photographs

New York Public Library

• Free & open access to +800,000 images that are digitized from the NYPL collections. Strong emphasis in: Africana & Black History; Dance in Photographs and Prints.
• Image types: photographs, prints, posters (mainly)

PHAROS Photo Archive

• PHAROS is an international consortium of 14 European & North American art historical photo archives.
• The digital research platform allows for consolidated access to photo archive images and their associated scholarly documentation.
• Image types: drawings, prints, fresco, miniatures, etc.