Image Searching and Image Collections

“Royalty free” images “licensed for non-profit use” covering various periods of art history. Also relates the images to chapters in older (2002 and earlier) editions of textbooks such as Gardner’s Art through the Ages and Janson’s History of Art.

Samplings of collections from institutions as varied as Brooklyn Museum, George Eastman House, US National Archives,Library of Congress and Australian National Maritime Museum.
"It is a requirement for participation in the program that institutions may rightly claim 'no known copyright restrictions' on the content they share"

"The Art Project is a collaboration between Google and 151 acclaimed art partners from across 40 countries"

Photos from the 1750s to today, many never before published.
Searchable, browsable by decades (1860s - 1970s), famous people, places, and events.

A gallery of scanned images of over 200 major artists' works, arranged alphabetically by name or listed by art movement. Also has changing ‘gallery exhibits’, excerpts of art criticism, and good discussion on copyright, ‘fair use’ and ‘public domain’ issues. Note that there may be popup ads or additional ad screens that you need to view before you can access the free content.

Small database of basic images--animals, plants, people, textures, etc., uploaded by a variety of photographers (pro and amateur) as "copyright friendly images for use by students and teachers in an educational setting" Easy browsing, but search feature doesn't always generate exact results; Use advance search and read search tips for best results. Results can be sorted by "date, name, photographer, size, width height and popularity"

Search with phrase "photos and multimedia" to find government agency photographs and logos. Mostly public domain items. Obviously strong in US history, geography, past and present political figures. Also includes audio and video files

UK-based collection ('a service of the Library & Student Services department of the University for the Creative Arts.)" 'strong on decorative and applied arts.

Directory of images including fonts, backgrounds & animation. Often designed for use on web pages or in desktop publishing rather than for printing.

See updated details below re: free content

FIT user name and password required to use these databases

"Explore New York’s past through over 250,000 objects from the
collection of the Museum of the City of New York."

Over 1.6 million images as of July 2022
Selected Collections

"More than 54,000 New York City archival photographs (and their captioned versos) from the 1870s-1970s arranged by borough and street; the majority are exterior building views and neighborhood scenes from the 1910s-1940s."

"768 postcards depicting the buildings, scenery, and daily life of Staten Island from the late 19th-century until well into the 20th-century"

The New York Public Library's gateway to its digital image collections.
Over 700,000 digitized images of items from the New York Public Library's collections, including photographs, postcards, posters, fashion plates, ephemera, manuscripts and much more.

Includes many subcollections such as:

Digitized version of the out-of-copyright material (mostly published prior to 1923) from the New York Public Library’s (Mid-Manhattan branch) extensive picture file collection, “the largest of its kind in any public library system.” Contains over 30,000 images, strong in areas of costume, and New York and American history.