Research Guides: Art: Getting Started in Archives Research

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Getting Started in Archives Research

Primary Sources
Primary source documents in the visual arts research may include: artist interviews, correspondence, exhibition catalogs, pamphlets, oral histories, photographs, artists' journals and/or statements, etc. While these documents can become a treasure trove for original research, they are often difficult to trace. Most archive collections provide finding aids to navigate the scope and context of what exists inside a particular collection. These are especially helpful when collections are not fully (or even partially) digitized or processed.

What is a finding aid?
A finding aid is a tool to enable discovery of information as it places materials in context by consolidating information about the collection, such as acquisition & processing, provenance, administrative history or biographical note, scope of the collection (including size, subjects, media; organization and arrangement) and an inventory of the series and the folders. This page provides helpful tools to browse and discover archival collections in museums and libraries nationally and internationally. If you are new to archival research, please don't hesitate to contact your visual arts librarian!

Archives & Special Collections at UCI Libraries
If you're looking to explore the collections housed locally here at UCI Libraries, please visit the Special Collections & Archives web page.

Tools to Discover Archival Collections

Calisphere
Calisphere provides free access to unique and historically important artifacts for research, teaching, and curious exploration. Discover over one million photographs, documents, letters, artwork, diaries, oral histories, films, advertisements, musical recordings, and more. The collections on Calisphere have been digitized and contributed by all ten campuses of the University of California, and other important libraries, archives, and museums throughout the state.
Online Archive of California
Provides access to descriptions and finding aids for materials such as manuscripts, photographs, and works of art held in libraries, museums, archives, and other institutions across California.
Archive Grid
ArchiveGrid helps researchers looking for primary source materials held in archives, libraries, museums and historical societies. Information can be searched by topic or specific archive. Includes +5 million records describing archival materials and over 1,000 different archival institutions represented.
Library of Congress Finding Aids
Finding aids are detailed guides to primary source material which provide fuller information than that normally contained within cataloging records. This page provides links to online archival finding aids at the Library of Congress.
Women Artists Archives National Directory
An innovative web directory to U.S. archival collections of primary source materials by and about women visual artists active in the U.S. since 1945.
Universes in Universe: World Art
Visual arts of Africa, Asia, and Latin America within the context of international art processes. UiU was created as a reaction to Western Europe- and US-centered cultural perspectives. The name Universes in Universe points out the multifaceted universal values within all the cultures and individuals, defending at the same time their uniqueness, despite of all the interactions and increasing interconnectedness.

Online Archives

Archives of American Art
The Archives has collected roughly 16 million letters, photographs, diaries, oral history interviews, sketches, scrapbooks, business records, and other documents that support the study of the history of the visual arts in America.
The Beazley Archive
Provides dictionary and bibliographies related to collections of ancient Greek and Roman cultural objects. Housed in the Classical Art Research Center and Archive at the University of Oxford.
Getty Research Institute
Search the Research Library Catalog, find Special Collections Finding Aids, browse digital images and resources, or access various databases such as the Provenance Index, the Art & Architecture Thesaurus®, and the Union List of Artist Names.
The National Archives
The NRA contains information on the nature and location of manuscripts and historical records that relate to British history.
NYPL Digital Gallery
Provides free and open access to over 640,000 images digitized from the The New York Public Library's vast collections, including illuminated manuscripts, historical maps, vintage posters, rare prints, photographs, and more.
Publishers' Bindings Online 1815-1930
A significant digital collection of 19th-century decorative bindings, along with a comprehensive glossary and guide to the elements of these objects. These bindings reflect not only social and cultural history, but also bibliographic history.
SCIPIO: Art and Rare Books Sales/Auction Catalogs
Descriptive records of art auctions and rare book catalogs for sales from the late sixteenth century to scheduled auctions not yet held. Records include the dates and places of sales, the auction houses, sellers, institutional holdings, and titles of works.
Smithsonian Institution Research Information System
Search 1.89 million records, with links to 178,800 images, video and sound files from dozens of Smithsonian libraries, archives, museums, and specialized research units.
Victoria & Albert Museum
Search the Collections is a working database providing online access to over a million catalogue records and over half a million images of objects in the V&A.

Featured Open Source Archives

Women's History at the Archives of American Art
Celebrate the history of women artists and art historians by exploring and transcribing archival collections from the Archives of American Art. Through diaries, notebooks, essays, and correspondence, learn about the life and careers of painters, sculptors, writers, critics, art historians, and other creative women who made their mark on American history.
South Asia Open Archives (SAOA)
The South Asia Open Archives (SAOA), a subset of the South Asia Materials Project (SAMP), creates and maintains a collection of open access materials for the study of South Asia. This major collaborative initiative is aimed at addressing the current scarcity of digital resources pertinent to South Asia studies and at making collections more widely accessible both to North American scholars and to researchers worldwide.