Guides: ARTH 432 American Art: Home

Getting Started

For background information, start with an exhaustive reference work such as Grove Art Online . Both the 'Guided Tour' and 'Tips for Users' (available from the Home page) provide useful information on searching Grove/Oxford Art Online.

Bibliographies located in books or at the end of journal articles can be very helpful. To learn if Pepperdine has access to a particular journal, search for the name of the journal in the library catalog, or use the 'Journals & Periodicals' search feature on the Library's Web site.

Art History Databases

Art Full Text
A comprehensive, international resource covering fine, decorative and commercial art, as well as photography, folk art, film, and architecture.
Full-text articles from more than 300 periodicals dating back to 1995
High-quality indexing and abstracting of over 600 periodicals dating as far back as 1984, including 280 peer-reviewed journals
Indexing and abstracting of over 13,000 art dissertations
Indexing of nearly 200,000 art reproductions

Bibliography of the History of Art (BHA)
The Getty Research Institute provides access to the BHA and to the Repertoire de la litterature de l'art (RILA) for no charge on its Web site. The databases, searchable together, cover material published between 1975 and 2007.

Grove Art Online (now part of Oxford Art Online)
Access to foremost scholarly art encyclopedia covering all aspects of Western and non-Western visual art, including the full text of The Dictionary of Art.
Also includes The Oxford Companion to Western Art, edited by Hugh Brigstocke (2001), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Art Terms by Michael Clarke and Deborah Clarke, and Encyclopedia of Aesthetics edited by Michael Kelly (1998).

General Databases

JSTOR
Access the journal archives Arts & Sciences I, II, III, IV, VI, and VII and over 40,000 ebooks on the JSTOR platform; book chapters and journal articles are cross-searchable. JSTOR is an extensive archive of interdisciplinary journals and books, covering subject disciplines in Arts, Business & Economics, History, Humanities, Law, Science & Mathematics, Social Sciences, and Religion.
Academic Search Elite
Provides full text coverage of over 2,050 journals, including nearly 1,500 peer-reviewed titles in the social sciences, humanities, general science, multi-cultural studies, education and more. Full-text coverage back to 1985.

Dissertations & Theses Global (ProQuest)
Doctoral dissertations and master's theses, from 1743 to the present. Full text for most dissertations since 1997.

Specialized Online Encyclopedias

Grove Encyclopedia of American Art (GEAA) This link opens in a new window
Entries on all aspects of American art and architecture from Native American art to Colonial art to contemporary American art.
Biography in Context
Biographical information on more than 528,000 people throughout history, around the world, and across all disciplines and subject areas.

Grove Encyclopedia of Decorative Arts
Contains over 3,000 entries covering thousands of years of decorative arts production throughout western and non-western cultures including hundreds of entries on the qualities and historical uses of materials, concise definitions on art forms and styles, and in-depth articles discussing the history of armor, jewelry, furniture, textiles, and ceramics.
Grove Encyclopedia of Materials and Techniques
Historical and current uses of materials and techniques in a wide range of areas from painting and sculpture to non-traditional media such as digital and video art.
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Coverage includes materials in art practice (e.g. ink, enamel, digital materials); materials in conservation (e.g. adhesives); classes of artifacts (e.g. wallpaper, mosaic, ceramic); techniques and methods (e.g. book binding, gilding, printing, weaving), terms (e.g. rustication), tools (e.g. easel, laser), theory (e.g. technical examination, conservation controversies), fakes & forgeries, and conservation theorists and practitioners.
Encyclopedia of American Studies
Brings together a large range of disciplines related to the history and cultures of the United States, from pre-colonial days to the present.
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Click on 'Resources' and then on 'Arts and Literature'

Museums

Smithsonian American Art Museum
The American Art Museum is the home to one of the largest and most inclusive collections of American art in the world. Museum staff maintain seven online research databases with more than 500,000 records, including the Inventories of American Painting and Sculpture that document more than 400,000 artworks in public and private collections worldwide.
LACMA (Los Angeles County Museum of Art)
The largest art museum in the western United States, with a collection that includes over 120,000 objects dating from antiquity to the present, encompassing the geographic world and nearly the entire history of art.
National Galley of Art, Washington
The Gallery's extensive collection of paintings, sculpture, decorative arts, and works on paper spans over 600 years of history from the Middle Ages to the present day.

ARTH 432 American Art

ArtNews

Librarian

Getting Started

Art History Databases

General Databases

Specialized Online Encyclopedias

Museums