James P. Adams Library: Finding and Using Good Images: More Online Image Collections

Online Image Collections

Encyclopedia of Life Images
Our knowledge of the many life-forms on Earth - of animals, plants, fungi, protists and bacteria - is scattered around the world in books, journals, databases, websites, specimen collections, and in the minds of people everywhere. Imagine what it would mean if this information could be gathered together and made available to everyone – anywhere – at a moment’s notice.
Public Art Archive
The Public Art Archive™ is a growing database and mobile website of completed public artworks from around the world. Search. Explore. Learn. Share. Grow.
Science Photo Library
The leading source of science and medical images & videos.
WGBH Open Vault
We provide online access to unique and historically important content produced by the public television and radio station WGBH.
World Images
The internationally recognized WorldImages database provides access to the California State University IMAGE Project.

Museum Collections

Art Institute Chicago
Belvedere Open Content
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As the first art museum in Austria, the Belvedere is committed to an Open Content Policy for images of art works no longer protected by copyright. These images are made available in print quality and free of charge via the Belvedere Website. The possibility to download high-quality images is intended to increase the collection’s international visibility and to facilitate scholarly publishing.
Birmingham Museums Trust
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Access our Public Domain images by simply using the search bar or click on the folders to go straight to images.

Free image file download of up to 3mb in size
Free licensing under under a Creative Commons Zero Licence (CC0)
Unlimited downloads
Cleveland Museum of Art
Cooper Hewitt Digital Collection
This website represents Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum’s diverse collection, spanning thirty centuries of historic and contemporary design, including the world's coolest office, a large snail shell, snakes, a dragon and four bearded men, a cone propped up on a bench, a pair of colorful hands, a mysterious tv and a perpetual calendar.
Digital Commonwealth
Digital Commonwealth is a Web portal and fee-based repository service for online cultural heritage materials held by Massachusetts libraries, museums, historical societies, and archives.
Digital Public Library of America (DPLA)
DPLA connects people to the riches held within America’s libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural heritage institutions. All of the materials found through DPLA—photographs, books, maps, news footage, oral histories, personal letters, museum objects, artwork, government documents, and so much more—are free and immediately available in digital format.
DigitaltMuseum
The objective of DigitaltMuseum is that museums’ collections should be made available to anybody who is interested, regardless of time or place. It is hoped that it will now be easier for these collections to be used for image searching, in-depth research, studies, education and for the mutual development of knowledge.

Harvard Art Museums
Historic New England
Search collections of photographs, wallpaper, jewelry, home furnishings, architectural drawings, clothing, and more, from the opulent to the everyday. While half of the object collections are on view at our historic sites, the Collections Access database is your chance to discover thousands of treasures not usually accessible to the public. You can also make an appointment to visit the Library and Archives in Boston to research archival collections in person.
J. Paul Getty Museum
Kunstmuseum Basel
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The Kunstmuseum Basel’s Collection Online website provides over 4,100 photographs of our works for download; all images are in the public domain.
Library of Congress Prints & Photographs
The Prints and Photographs Online Catalog (PPOC) contains catalog records and digital images representing a rich cross-section of still pictures held by the Prints & Photographs Division and, in some cases, other units of the Library of Congress. The Library of Congress offers broad public access to these materials as a contribution to education and scholarship.
Los Angeles County Museum of Art Online Collection
Mauritshuis (The Hague)
Collection consists of masterpieces from the Dutch Golden Age, including Rembrandt.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art Online Collections
Minneapolis Institute of Arts
The mission of the Minneapolis Institute of Arts includes making the outstanding works of art in its collections accessible to a global audience – both the objects and what we know about them. Wherever possible, this information will be shared free of charge and with few or no restrictions on its use.
Munch Museet
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One of the world’s largest single-artist collections. 1,150 paintings and some 18,000 prints.
Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, Wellington
Collections Online has information on almost 800,000 artworks, objects and specimens from Te Papa’s collections; from dinosaur teeth to contemporary art, buzzy bee to Xena. Collection areas cover Taonga Maori, Pacific Cultures, History, Photography, Art, Botany and Zoology. These items are complemented by over 190,000 images, with over 60,000 available for high resolution download. There’s also a wealth of information on related people, places, topics, species and research from Te Papa.

National Gallery of Art Images
NGA Images is a repository of digital images of the collections of the National Gallery of Art. On this website you can search, browse, share, and download images. A standards-based reproduction guide and a help section provide advice for both novices and experts. More than 51,000 open access digital images up to 4000 pixels each are available free of charge for download and use. NGA Images is designed to facilitate learning, enrichment, enjoyment, and exploration.
National Library of Medicine Images
Images from the History of Medicine (IHM) provides online access to images from the U.S. National Library of Medicine’s (NLM) historical collections. IHM is available through NLM’s Digital Collections, a free online resource of biomedical books and still and moving images.
Nationalmuseet Danmark
Nationalmuseum, Stockholm
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From Wikimedia Commons, the free media repository.
New York Public Library Public Domain Collections
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Did you know that more than 180,000 of the items in our Digital Collections are in the public domain?
That means everyone has the freedom to enjoy and reuse these materials in almost limitless ways. The Library now makes it possible to download such items in the highest resolution available directly from the Digital Collections website.
Národní galerie Praha

Paris Musées
The Rembrandt Database
New and innovative research resource on Rembrandt paintings worldwide ▪ Freely accessible ▪ Ever-growing ▪ Inter-institutional ▪ Multidisciplinary ▪ Sustainable platform for sharing information ▪ In-depth art historical information ▪ Conservation history & technical documentation ▪ High resolution images and texts
Rijksmuseum (Amsterdam)
One of the most complete collections of Dutch 17th-century painting including works by Rembrandt.
Smarthistory
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Smarthistory is a leading resource for the study of art and cultural heritage. Our growing collection of videos and essays are designed to be engaging and conversational and cover art that ranges from the paleolithic to the present.
The Smithsonian Institution Archive Collections
Search the Smithsonian Institution Archives’ collections, which contain the official records of the Smithsonian, as well as personal papers, special collections, records of professional societies, and oral/video histories relating to the history of the Smithsonian.
Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen
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SMK in Sølvgade in Copenhagen is an excellent frame for the art collection of the Danish people. But not everybody has easy acces to the physical museum and when you visit the building – and if you see all the artworks on display – you’ll only have experienced 0.7% of the entire collection.

By default, the copyright to SMK’s photos of art belongs to the museum itself. However, SMK has chosen to waive these rights. This means that all photos of Public Domain artworks on this site are also in the Public Domain and free to use.
Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus, Munich
Web Gallery of Art
The Web Gallery of Art is a searchable database of European fine arts and architecture (8th-19th centuries), currently containing over 44.800 reproductions. Artist biographies, commentaries, guided tours, period music, catalogue, free postcard and mobile services are provided.
Wellcome Collection
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Find thousands of freely licensed digital books, artworks, photos and images of historical library materials and museum objects.
Yale Digital Medical Library

Museo
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Museo is a visual search engine that connects you with the Art Institute of Chicago, the Rijksmuseum, the Minneapolis Institute of Art and the New York Public Library Digital Collection (more to come!). Every image you find here is in the public domain and completely free to use, although crediting the source institution is recommended!

Stock Photos & Images

Morguefile
A morgue file is a place to keep post production materials for use of reference, an inactive job file. This morgue file contains free high resolution digital stock photography for either corporate or public use.

The term "morgue file" is popular in the newspaper business to describe the file that holds past issues flats. Although the term has been used by illustrators, comic book artist, designers and teachers as well. The purpose of this site is to provide free image reference material for use in all creative pursuits. This is the world wide web's morguefile.
Unsplash
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Over 850,000 free (do-whatever-you-want) high-resolution photos brought to you by the world’s most generous community of photographers.

Icons, Graphics & Type

Crystal Clear
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From Wikimedia Commons, the free media repository.
humaaans
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Mix-&-match illustrations of people with a design library. Creative Commons license.
Letterform Archive
The Archive was founded by Rob Saunders, a collector of the letter arts for over 40 years, as a place to share his private collection with the public. We opened to visitors in February 2015 and now offer hands-on access to a curated collection of over 50,000 items related to lettering, typography, calligraphy, and graphic design, spanning thousands of years of history.
The Noun Project
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Creative Commons licensed icons.
Tango Icons
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From Wikimedia Commons, the free media repository.