Visual Resources Collection

Explore resources related to finding and using images for teaching in the Krieger School of Arts and Sciences.

Artstor is Moving to JSTOR

***Artstor on JSTOR News*** The transition from Artstor to JSTOR is continuing. The Artstor website will be retired on August 1, 2024. JHU is one of ten institutions around the world currently participating in ITHAKA’s beta testing program. Please consider experimenting. To access JHU’s local image collections in JSTOR, visit our landing page. All feedback will be incredibly useful in shaping the future of the platform and JHU’s image collections. To really make an impact, ITHAKA needs to hear from end users. If you have any feedback or thoughts to share, email the VRC or contact JSTOR Support directly. For more information about the transition, see this page or email the VRC.

Artstor: An Image Library for the Arts and Sciences

The Artstor Digital Library provides more than 2.5 million digital images in the arts, architecture, humanities, and sciences.

Not sure what you are looking for? Artstor has an impressive list of collections available for browsing, including content from the Baltimore Museum of Art, the Barnes Foundation, the Getty Institute, the Illustrated Bartsch, the Library of Congress, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the National Gallery of Art, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, and the Walters Art Museum. However, Artstor’s collections go well beyond the history of art. For starters, explore the American Museum of Natural History collection, the Schlesinger History of Women in America Collection, the Vesalius Anatomical Illustrations collection, and the World War I and II Posters and Postcards collection.

New images appear in Artstor frequently. For example, the Larry Qualls Archive of Contemporary Art recently added approximately 32,000 images of contemporary art to Artstor. You can find out more about additions to Artstor by visiting the Artstor blog or by subscribing to the Artstor email list.

Accessing and Using Artstor

Access Artstor at library.artstor.org. If you are off campus, use this proxy link.

In Artstor you are able to create groups and then download the images from those groups as a ZIP file. You are also able to download a PowerPoint file created from your image groups. You are also able to download individual images or download image details.

In order to download images or PowerPoint files you will need to register for a free Artstor account if you do not already have one. 

To link to images, image groups, and collections in Artstor for both on and off campus use, follow these instructions from Artstor. Then, add the proxy address in front of the link created by Artstor: 

http://proxy.library.jhu.edu/login?url= 

For example, in the case below, the link to share would be http://proxy.library.jhu.edu/login?url=https://library.artstor.org/group/ad6592d3-a48b-42f3-8459-7474bbca5938 

Share link to image group

Off campus account access to Artstor expires after 120 days. If you log into your Artstor account on a campus computer, your access will reset for another 120 days. If you are not able to come to campus, contact the VRC, and we can reset your account for 30 days.  (Artstor remote access usually last 120-days, but for the duration of the COVID-19 crisis, Artstor is extending this feature to last 365-day.)

The Offline Image Viewer (OIV) is Artstor's offline presentation tool. If you have a question about using the OIV, contact the VRC, and check out the Artstor OIV Help page.

For more information about using Artstor, visit the Artstor support site

Artstor Filters, Subjects, and Creators

Artstor filters allow you to narrow your search by collection type, object type, geography, date, and contributor. New in the past year, the contributor filter allows you to choose a specific library, museum, or other contributing organization.

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Additionally, it is now possible to use your search results to discover related content. When viewing an image, users are now able to click on creators and subjects to see all of the other images with those same artists and subjects.

subjects

Searching Artstor in JSTOR

Did you know that when you search JSTOR, you are able to see Artstor images in your search? You can also directly search for Artstor images in JSTOR!

 

artstor on jstor

Additional Image Databases at Hopkins

In addition to Artstor and JSTOR, the Johns Hopkins community has access to images through databases such as:

 

For more ways to find images, see the Images page on the library's Art History Research Guide and see the Finding Images guide.

Roman de la Rose Digital Library