Resources for Researching Art
Research hints:
When researching contemporary art, you will be gathering information from a variety of places. You will find biographical and exhibition information, reviews, and potentially books about your artist.
Sometimes your artist may not have a body of literature written about them, so artist files and web sites may be your only source of information. There are many fantastic web sites, but make sure you use your critical eye and evaluate them thoroughly.
Destiny (library catalogue):
Search:
for your artist/topic as a subject
By searching by subject you will find books and websites about the topic.
Click on the Destiny icon to go to the Resource list of books and websites on this topic. Remember to click the tab, "Websites" for the websites curated by Follett.
Databases:
The encyclopedias will provide short articles about the surrealism movement. They will also provide excellent biographies on artists.
Britannica Imagequest is a great place to look for images
EBSCO Discovery will search all the databases the school has at one time. You will get a lot of results so think about your search terms carefully. Remember to put quotation marks around terms you want to search as a phrase. For example "pop art" "robert rauschenberg"
Websites:
My Modern Met - This is not affiliated with a museum but they have provided a good overview of contemporary movements. Provides a list of
Wikipedia - Art movement and styles table
I don't usually suggest Wikepedia but it does have a really good table that lists art movements and styles by the decade. This can be helpful when thinking about your artist in a context of time.