Blog

Himachal Pradesh, Lahaul-Spiti, Dankhar Gompa, India. Offering table in front of second Buddha. c. late 17th – 18th century. Detail from mural painting (east corner, south wall) in sNa ka mTshang Hall. Image and data provided by Rob Linrothe.

An additional contribution of nearly 1,000 images has been made to the Rob Linrothe: Tibetan and Buddhist Art collection in the Artstor Digital Library, bringing the total to over 5,000.* Scholar/photographer Linrothe has provided this unique resource in collaboration with the Lucy Scribner Library, Skidmore College and Northwestern University.

Pinjore, Panchkula, Haryana, India. Mughal Garden. 1658-1707. Image and data provided by American Institute of Indian Studies. Photographer: D.P. Nanda.

The American Institute of Indian Studies (AIIS) has contributed an additional 5,094 images to the Artstor Digital Library, bringing their total to more than 69,000.*

Artstor’s global collections span time and cultures and provide a wonderful resource for teaching and research in the humanities and social sciences. Our “Artstor Across Disciplines” LibGuide outlines how Artstor’s collections can be used in over 20 disciplines, including American studies, religious studies, the history of medicine, women’s studies, and more.

Hippolyte Bayard, Self Portrait as a Drowned Man, 1840. Data from University of California, San Diego.

Hippolyte Bayard, Self Portrait as a Drowned Man (verso), 1840. Data from University of California, San Diego.

In a grainy 1840 photograph, a partially-covered corpse is propped against a wall, its decay evident in the darkening skin of the face and hands. The body is that of Hippolyte Bayard, an early inventor of photographic processes and supposed drowning victim, and written on the image verso is a strange note:

Funeral of a Patron, 1st century CE, Musée du Louvre. Image and original data provided by Erich Lessing Culture and Fine Arts Archives/ART RESOURCE, N.Y.

Renowned photojournalist Erich Lessing passed away on August 29th in Vienna, Austria at the age of 95.

A member of Magnum Photos and a former Associated Press photographer, he began his career photographing political events before switching his focus to cultural subjects.

With nearly 2.5 million images making up 300 collections in Artstor–plus hundreds more public collections–where does one begin browsing in Artstor?

Browsing images may not seem like the best way to find an image, especially if you are looking for something specific. However, browsing allows you to serendipitously discover images you might not find with a more focused search. Next time you’re working in Artstor, try some of these techniques and see what you discover:

Maybe you’ve been searching and viewing images in Artstor, and even downloaded images from public collections, but you’d like to do more. Register for an account and you can–it’s easy!

Here’s what you get when you sign up

Registered users at subscribing institutions can download images from Artstor’s core collections of 2.5+ million images, save and organize these images into groups, export them to fully captioned PowerPoint presentations, and share the groups with students or collaborators.

Writing a paper? You can use Artstor to easily generate citations in APA, Chicago, or MLA styles.

Here’s how to do it:

1. View the image you would like to cite.
2. Select the “Cite this item” button to the right of the image viewer.
3. Click “Copy to clipboard” located underneath the citation style you are using.
4. Paste the citation you just copied into your paper.

That’s it! Simple image citations with the click of a button.

On Broadway, 1983 January 22. Aaron Cometbus Punk and Underground Press Collection. Image courtesy the Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, Cornell University Library.

The Dry House, 1988 May 06. Aaron Cometbus Punk and Underground Press Collection. Image courtesy the Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, Cornell University Library.

Keystone Berkeley, 1981 May 14. Aaron Cometbus Punk and Underground Press Collection. Image courtesy the Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, Cornell University Library.

Dead Kennedys, 1980's. Johan Kugelberg punk collection, circa 1974-1986. Image courtesy the Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, Cornell University Library.

Punk flyers from the 1970s to the 1990s shared many of the qualities of the music they promoted–a DIY aesthetic, an embrace of cheap and accessible technology (i.e., photocopiers), plus a healthy dose of humor. In contrast to the often ornate Art Nouveau-inspired rock posters of the psychedelic 1960s, punk flyers typically featured dissonant collages, crude handwriting, and amateurish drawing–not to mention a strict limitation of color.

Philippe Halsman, Marilyn Monroe, 1956. Image and data courtesy the NHIA Photograph Collection, Teti Library, New Hampshire Institute of Art.

Keith Carter, Elephant + Stars, no date. Image and data courtesy the NHIA Photograph Collection, Teti Library, New Hampshire Institute of Art

Edward Weston (printed by Cole Weston), Hot Coffee, 1947. Image and data courtesy the Thomas L. Adams, Jr. Photographic Collection, Teti Library, New Hampshire Institute of Art.

An update from our friends at The New Hampshire Institute of Art (NHIA)

Last summer, The New Hampshire Institute of Art’s John Teti Rare Photography Book and Print Collection received a second major gift from collector and philanthropist John Teti. This gift contained original photographic prints of many leading 20th-century photographers, including Harry Callahan, Paul Caponigro, Imogen Cunningham, Lee Friedlander, Andre Kertesz, Man Ray, Minor White, and more. These works are now being added via JSTOR Forum to the NHIA Photograph Collection, which is available as a Public Collection on Artstor. The collection has now grown to nearly 600 images.