American Art Resources
Information on American Art can be found in many places in the library, such as art books or history texts that discuss art and artists.
To find resources on American Art ...
- Use a General Search of our collection for books, articles, videos, and more.
- Or try a specialized journal database to find scholarly articles.
Here are some examples of basic search terms you can use to start out:
- American art
- John Singleton Copley
- Chrysler Building
Find more information in the reference works and website links on this page.
Online Reference Sources
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North American Women Artists of the Twentieth Century: A Biographical Dictionary
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Publication Date: 1995The descriptions are short but numerous. The online version is a convenient way to get quick information on particular artists.
Websites
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National Museum of American History: Archives CenterLook here for primary sources about your artist: letters, diaries, sketches, photographs, exhibition catalogs, business records, oral interviews and more. Do a search in the Smithsonian's SIRIS search engine (for example, ‘Cass Gilbert’), or see the links on the left of the page for finding aids to the various collections. (Note that not everything you'll find here is available online.)
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American MemoryAn incredible collection of the Library of Congress's documents and images on American history. A good place for primary sources on specific artists, old exhibitions, etc.
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Terra Foundation for American ArtThe Terra Foundation, begun in Chicago in the 1970s and extending around the world, has a great online collection of American art. The collection includes nearly 800 paintings, prints, drawings, photographs, and sculptures spanning the colonial period to 1945.
Print Reference Sources
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The Grove Encyclopedia of American Art
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Call Number: Reference N 6505 .G76 2011ISBN: 0195335791With more than 2,300 entries, these five volumes encompass the history of the cultural development of America. -
Dictionary of Contemporary American Artists
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Call Number: Reference N6512 .C854 1994A useful directory of American artists. Instead of descriptions, it has detailed listings of the artists' educations, teaching assignments, awards, exhibitions, memberships, and more. You'll even find their addresses — but since this was published in 1994, they're probably no longer valid. -
Encyclopedia of African American Artists
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Call Number: Reference N6512 .C854 1994The rich heritage of African American artists across generations. Includes paintings (artists such as Horace Pippin and Faith Ringgold), photography (artists such as Gordon Parks), and new media (artists such as Sam Gilliam and Martin Puryear). -
Dictionary of American Art
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Call Number: Reference N6505.B34 1979A classic compendium of biographical entries on American artists, as well as articles on specific topics. -
Dictionary of Women Artists
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Call Number: Reference N8354 .D5 1997Two volumes of comprehensive information, with two- to three-page descriptions of most of its artists. The first volume has introductory surveys on 20th-century artists. You'll also find bibliographies and a chronological list of artists. -
Modern Arts Criticism: A Biographical and Critical Guide to Painters, Sculptors, Photographers, and Architects from the Beginning of the Modern Era to the Present
Call Number: Reference N40 .M63 vols. 1-4These four volumes are the place to go for detailed accounts of significant modern artists such as Georgia O'Keefe and Alex Katz. Background information and criticism, plus artists' statements about their own works and ideas. Lots of suggestions for further reading.
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The Encyclopedia of American Art Before 1914
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Call Number: Reference N6507 .E53 2000Covers all the major artistic developments in the U.S. from the Colonial period until 1914. Includes 500 biographies of such well-known figures as John Singleton Copley, Benjamin West, Thomas Cole, and Paul Revere — along with 19th-century and early-20th-century Californian artists, a group that has frequently been overlooked in previous literature. -
Who Was Who in American Art, 1564-1975 : 400 Years of Artists in America
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Call Number: Reference N6536 .W56 1999 vols. 1-3The nearly 25,000 biographical entries in these 3 volumes were compiled from the American Art Annual (1898-1933) and its subsequent four volumes under the title of Who's Who in American Art (1935-1947). These thirty-four volumes have been regarded as our most accurate source of biographical data on American artists active from the late nineteenth century through the mid twentieth century — the only source whose information came directly from the artists themselves.
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Art Index
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Call Number: Reference NX 1 A77 1929-1998These print volumes index articles in international art journals and magazines from 1929 to 1998. Ask a librarian to show you how the index works. You can find a more up-to-date online version in the Art Full Text database.
