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In this time of social distancing, it seems like everyone has turned to videoconferencing, from your teachers to your family. But perhaps you don’t want your grandparents to compare the size of your Brooklyn apartment to that of your cousin in Texas, or for your colleagues to see the dishes piling up in your kitchen sink. Open Artstor has you covered! We’ve selected a dozen artistic backgrounds to have you looking your best, including masterpieces by Van Gogh and Monet–download them for free at artstor.org/zoom.

Vincent van Gogh. Wheat Field with Cypresses, 1889. From Open Artstor: The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Creative Commons: Free Reuse (CC0)

The Oregon College of Art and Craft has contributed more than 200 images of richly diverse works by faculty members to the Artstor Digital Library. The selection, which dates from 1986 to 2011, includes ceramics, fiber arts, works on paper, paintings, sculpture, installations, photographs and video.

Selected works reveal both creative and technical brilliance with results that are provocative, subversive, whimsical and beautiful.

Christine Clark. Teapot with Pink. 2007. Hand-raised 18 gauge sterling silver with applied concrete to a welded steel wire, with flocking. Image and data from Oregon College of Art and Craft. Photograph Bill Bachhuber.

Christine Clark. Wire Teapot. 2010. 14 to 20 gauge steel wire torch welded, hand woven. Image and data from Oregon College of Art and Craft. Photograph Stephen Funk.

The teapot project, an enduring rite of passage for students in metals is represented by two versions by Christine Clark who headed the department and conceived the project: Teapot with Pink, 2007, and Wire Teapot, 2010.

Honoré Daumier. L’Exposition de 1859: Dire que je vais être…Exposé…1859. Lithograph. Image and data provided by The Phillips Collection.

Missing your favorite museums? Let us reveal them to you remotely. Artstor offers comprehensive coverage of the collections of well over 100 international museums and galleries through various accesses—ranging from fully public, from our community collaborators, as well as Open Artstor collections with works entirely in the public domain—to selections in the Artstor Digital Library that are available to subscribing institutions and their members.

Explore one of our finest museums virtually

Ogata Korin, follower of. Chrysanthemums by a Stream. Late 1700s – early 1800s. One of a pair of folding screens; ink and color on gilded paper. Image and data provided by The Cleveland Museum of Art. CCO 1.0.

In collaboration with The Cleveland Museum of Art and their comprehensive Open Access initiative, Artstor has published an expansive selection of works from this leading repository, freely available to all and with Creative Commons licenses in Open Artstor: The Cleveland Museum of Art. This is part of a new, free initiative to aggregate open museum, library, and archive collections across disciplines on the Artstor platform — already a destination for scholars using visual media. Incorporating more than 10,000 years of history and iconic works from every corner of the globe, this collection includes nearly 29,000 images offering considerable coverage of the museum’s encyclopedic collection — paintings from Nicolas Poussin to Georgia O’Keeffe, precious jewels and scrolls from China, Japanese screens and kimonos, African and Native American ritual attire and objects, pre-Columbian gold, photography, and much more.

Artstor and JSTOR will be attending the Electronic Resources and Libraries Conference in Austin, Texas, March 8-11.

Come by booth #705 to pick up some swag and learn about our latest initiatives. We look forward to talking about the new collections and tools we’ve added to Artstor, and discussing our plans for future development!

The Open Artstor: Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa Collection is now available, featuring a selection of more than 45,000 images under Creative Commons licenses. This is part of a new, free initiative to aggregate open museum, library, and archive collections across disciplines on the Artstor platform — already a destination for scholars using visual media.

Charles Blomfield. White Terraces. 1882. Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa. No known copyright.

Alfred Burton. White Terraces. ca. 1885. Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa. No known copyright.

Artstor will be attending the 2020 College Art Association Annual Conference in Chicago, Illinois, February 12-15.

Come by booth #513 in Salon A, Lower Level to say hello and learn about our latest updates and initiatives. We have added new collections and tools to Artstor, and look forward to discussing our plans for future development!

What’s new in the Artstor Digital Library?

G.M.B. Akash. A young Bede (Beday) girl near a river. Image and data from Panos Pictures

Andrew Esiebo. At a camp for internally displaced people (IDPs), a group of boys are undergoing one of the several bonding and life skills activities. August 2018. Image and data from Panos Pictures.

The end of the decade marks the beginning of our open access era

In 2019 we kicked off our Open Artstor initiative and began aggregating cross-disciplinary museum, library, and archive collections and making them available to all via Creative Commons licenses. We capped the year with the publication of three expansive and diverse collections.

Cell in laser beam, flow cytometry, illustration. Wellcome Collection. Credit: Neil Dufton. CC BY 4.0.

Science Museum Group. Klein bottle, 1995. 1996-558. Science Museum Group Collection Online. Accessed January 3, 2020. https://collection.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk/objects/co415806. CC BY 4.0.

Science Museum Group. Personal Computer, model Apple I. 1999-915. Science Museum Group Collection Online. Accessed January 3, 2020. https://collection.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk/objects/co503422. CC BY 4.0.

Pinckney Marcius-Simons. Illustrations to A Midsummer Night's Dream. 1908. Image and data provided by the Folger Shakespeare Library. CC BY-NC-ND 4.0.