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Art and Art History Research Guide

A guide providing an overview of tools and strategies for finding resources related to art and art history.

Search Tips for Books

It isn't always easy to find books about a specific artist.  If you have already searched using the artist's last name and not found anything (or not very much) you'll need to broaden your search.

Instead of getting an entire book about your one artist only, look for other books that may contain a chapter or section on the artist.  Here are some options for other terms to use in searching:

  • Style the artist worked in or movement the artist was involved with
  • Nationality or home country of the artist
  • Time period in which the artist worked

If you don't know this information about the artist, use one of the Library's reference sources to find it.

Call Numbers

Would you like to browse the shelves at the Libraries to find books on your topic? Try browsing in the following call numbers:

N Visual arts in general
NA Architecture
NB Sculpture
NC Drawing. Design. Illustration.
ND Painting
NE Print media
NK Decorative arts. Applied arts. Decoration and ornament. Including antiques in general.
NX Arts in general, including works dealing with two or more fine arts media.
TR Photography
Z 116-265 Printing, including graphic arts and typography

Take a peek at our collection!

Curatorial Activism: Towards and Ethics of Curating
Intimate geometries : the art and life of Louise Bourgeois / Robert Storr.
The art of feminism : images that shaped the fight for equality, 1857-2017 / Helena Reckitt, consulting editor ; written by Lucinda Gosling, Hilary Robinson, and Amy Tobin ; preface by Maria Balshaw ; foreword by Xabier Arakistain.
Equal under the sky : Georgia O'Keeffe and twentieth-century feminism / Linda M. Grasso.
Someday is now : the art of Corita Kent / edited by Ian Berry and Michael Duncan
Magnetic Fields: Expanding American Abstraction, 1960s to Today
Fictions of Emancipation

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