Find Images

High-quality art images are essential for research, papers and presentations. Recommended image sources are listed here.

Atrium in Zeitz museum of Contemporary Art Africa (Zeitz MOCAA), dbrnjhrj, 2018, stock.adobe.com

Image Search Tips

Google Images is an excellent starting point for exploratory research, but be sure to expand the search further!

Use a SCAD Libraries recommended Image Database.
- These will have high-quality images that will be well-suited for presentations, and come from verifiable sources.
Find the museum or collections that own a certain artwork or style of art.
- This information is sometimes found in Wikipedia or in JSTOR.
- Look for pages or links like "image collections," "online collections," or "digital library" on the institutions website.
Search an artist's name and the phrase "catalogue raisonné" in SCAD Libraries.
- Catalogues raisonnés are comprehensive listings of all known works by an artist, and might include images, and which museum or collection owns the work.

We recommend these image databases:

JSTOR
Database containing full-text articles from scholarly journals and images from institutions around the world covering a variety of subjects.
JSTOR includes digitized articles from back issues of academic journals as well as book chapters, ebooks, abstracts, and primary sources from the humanities and social sciences. For help using JSTOR, search SCAD Libraries' FAQ, or use the chat feature to contact library staff.
Digital Image Database
Image database maintained by the SCAD Visual Resources Center. DID contains a custom array of digitized images for the SCAD community.
The Digital Image Database (DID) contains images from prehistory through the twenty-first century in a wide range of topic categories covering all majors at SCAD. Searches can also be conducted by location, material, media, artistic movements, or artist name. In addition to published work, DID also contains student and faculty work. For help with the SCAD Digital Images Database, search SCAD Libraries' FAQ, or use the chat feature to contact library staff.

Should I cite images?

Yes! In addition to citing written sources (like articles and books), it's good practice to cite image sources as well.

How do I cite images?

The handout below, developed by the Writers' Studio, provides guidelines for image citation that are widely accepted at SCAD. The style manuals for APA, MLA, Chicago and Turabian styles can also be consulted regarding image citation.

Referencing Figures in the Text (PDF)
This handout provides examples of how to cite images acquired from various sources.