Collections
Access to the following resources is available through (and limited to) the campus network, and/or remotely to those with current University of Chicago computing accounts. For the latest information about our collections, please visit the VRC's blog, All Things Visual
Collections created at The University of Chicago
The Department of Art History's teaching resource of more than 17,000 digital images designed for use in conjunction with current classes.
Digital Collection in Luna Insight ®. Access the AMICA collection via Insight Browser.
What is Luna Insight®? The Department of Art History's teaching resource of more than 50,000 digital images designed for use in conjunction with current classes. Insight© software allows you to search image collections, manipulate selected images using a "digital lightbox", and create image-based presentations that are ideal for classroom and professional use. Unique features of the presentation software allow for zooming in and cropping of high-resolution images during a presentation, in addition to the ability to annotate and weblink content. Individual images can also be exported for use in other presentation software, such as PowerPoint, Keynote, and as html pages.
Insight© software and digital image collections hosted on the University of Chicago site are available to University students and faculty. Please contact the VRC Director or Assistant Director for access and instruction. One-on-one tutorials are available by appointment. Click here for self-guided instruction in Luna Insight©.
Old Digital Image Collection
Images digitized between 2000–2005 are available at the above link. There are more than 14,000 images available here with minimal metadata. Images produced after August 2005 are available through Luna Insight (see above).
35mm Slide Collection
The Slide Collection is located in the Cochrane Woods Art Center, Room 261 and consists of more than 350,000 slides. In-building use is limited to art history faculty and students, but special arrangements may be made for other faculty and students.
Epstein Photographic Archive
The Archive consists of over 168,000 photographs of artworks and other objects related to art-historical research. These photographs were, for the most part, acquired by Max Epstein in the 1930's, and donated by him to the Department of Art History. The core of the collection consists of duplicates of photographs from the collection of Sir Robert Witt, now the Witt Library of Photographs at the Courtauld Institute of the University of London. Also represented are rare and historic photographs. The collection grew through gifts from the Art Institute of Chicago, the National Gallery of Art, and individual members of the University faculty. At present, the Archive is a unique resource for scholars, providing images of objects, views and details unavailable elsewhere.
The Epstein Photographic Archive resides in the Regenstein Library, Room 404.
Digital Image Resources from the University Libraries
ARTstor: Searchable database of more than 300,000 digital images. ARTstor covers many time periods and cultures, and documents the fields of architecture, painting, sculpture, photography, decorative arts, and design, as well as forms of visual culture. Users can search, view, and download images.
More about ARTstor.
Artnet: Sale results and images for individual lots sold at major auction houses since 1990. Database includes paintings, sculpture, and works on paper. Records are searchable by either artist's name or auction house; no subject or keyword searching is available at ths time.
Bridgeman Art Library: Searchable database of 100,000 images from over 800 collections around the world.
Index of Christian Art: Indexes works of art from early apostolic times to A.D. 1400, with an emphasis on art of the western world. Seventeen media are represented in the archive, including manuscripts, metalwork, sculpture, painting, and glass. Records include bibliography, references to reproductions and, in some cases, links to images.
Saskia Art Images Collection: 30,000 digital images of paintings, sculpture and architecture, including images from many important collections: the Prado, the Kunsthistorisches Museum, the Uffizi, and the Louvre as well as archaeological sites in Greece, Italy, Turkey and Egypt. The images are displayed in both high resolution and thumbnail format.
Digital Image Resources on the Internet
Catena, the Digital Archive of Historic Gardens + Landscape: contains nearly 2000 images focused on the villa as a landscape type that may be searched and browsed on a variety of terms.
Copyright Policy
All materials in the Visual Resources Collection are subject to copyright restrictions. Copyright legislation restricts the use of copyrighted materials in non-teaching functions.
For more information on copyright, visit links on the following page: Library Copyright Links, Copyright Issues