LibGuides: Images: Image Collections

Image Collections - Art Museums

Free Art Images and Art Books online (see articles below for links and information)

Where to find Free Art Images & Books from Great Museums, and Free Books from University Presses
1.8 Million Free Works of Art from World-Class Museums: a Meta List of Great Art Available Online

A Sampling of Art Museum Collections

Looking for free Museum image collections?? Visit Flickr and search for your favorite museum. Want to browse museums? Search for "Museums" in the search box, and choose "Search Groups."

Art Publications
(Books, Exhibitions, Catalogues, and more!)

Looking for free Art Publications? Visit Internet Archive and search for your favorite museum. Want to browse museums? Search for "Museums" in the search box, and use the filters on the left side to limit to Collections, Texts, Topics & Subjects, Creators, etc.

Where to find Free Art Images & Books from Great Museums, and Free Books from University Presses

A Sampling of Specific Museums (and Libraries)

Image Collections - Academic Collections

Art Images for College Teaching (AICT)
Berkeley Digital Library SunSITE
Claremont Colleges Digital Library
Digital Collections @ FAU
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The Florida Atlantic University Digital Library creates online collections that promote education, scholarship, and lifelong learning in support of the educational mission of the University. The FAU Digital Library supports teaching and research by providing access to digitized unique local resources including Special Collections and University Archive materials.
Emergence of Advertising in America: 1850 - 1920 - Duke University
Medicine and Madison Avenue - Duke University
PALMM Collection
World Images (Cal State Univ)
Krannert Art Museum (U of Illinois @ Urbana-Champaign))

Images Collections - Other

Recommended Image Repositories

NOTE: You may need to do your image search by License/Usage rights at these sites.
Hover over the title of the resource to get additional information. ALWAYS check images rights and restrictions prior to using an image.

Most images require at minimum an attribution, while some have other usage restrictions or requirements.

Bing Click "Filters," select "License" in the menu below the search box. Select "Public Domain."
British Museum Free Images Check carefully for free images versus copyrighted images (or using images for commercial uses).
Burst: Free Stock Photos
Canva Photos
ClipArt ETC Free clipart from USF College of Education. Mostly B&W drawn images.
Clippix ETC Free high-quality photos and pictures for classroom use, from University of South Florida (USF) College of Education.
Creative Commons Search (now Open Verse) A portal for searching various sites for Creative Commons images, audio, video, and other media. Select a site to begin your search; your currently selected site will be highlighted in light blue.
Death to Stock
Dreamstime
Europeana Europe's digital library
Flaticon 959,000 vector icons grouped in 19,028 packs
Flickr - look at Library of Congress and British Library for many free-to-use images Advanced search includes several helpful options. Also find Library of Congress images at this site.
Freeimages.co.uk
Freeimages.com
Freepixels Images and videos released under Creative Commons CC0 license
Freerange Free photos and illustrations licensed for commercial use. No attribution required!
Freestocks.org All photos under Creative Commons CCO license
Free to Use and Reuse (Library of Congress) Items from the Library's digital collections that are free to use and reuse. The Library believes that this content is either in the public domain, has no known copyright, or has been cleared by the copyright owner for public use.
Getty Open Content The Getty makes available, without charge, all available digital images to which the Getty holds the rights or that are in the public domain to be used for any purpose. No permission is required. Open content images are identified with a "Download" link. Images provided are JPEG files at a minimum of 300 ppi. Check the Getty Open Content Program site for more information on attribution, terms of use and more. Also see Open Content Program search.
Google Images
Gratisography Whimsical and oddball photos
The Greats (public artwork) Creative Commons licensed - remember to give attribution and check the CC license for each piece of art you wish to re-use.
IconFinder Most are CC0. Check each license.
Image*After Search for photos and backgrounds/textures
Images of Empowerment "free library of images celebrating women’s lives and their work in 12 countries around the world"
Internet Archive Archive's Moving Images library of thousands of free movies, films, and videos uploaded by Archive users which range from classic full-length films, to daily alternative news broadcasts, to cartoons and concerts.
KaboomPics Free stock photos, mockups and articles.
Library of Congress (LOC) Select items from the "Free to Use and Reuse Sets", as well as other digital collections (https://www.loc.gov/collections/). Check for copyright and use for each image.
MedPix (National Library of Medicine)
Metropolitan Museum (Image and Data Resources) See information at this site regarding Creative Commons Zero (CC0) artwork for this site.
Microsoft Office redirect for Images MS Office now directs you to Bing and other Microsoft resources to find images and shows the respective licensing for each image.
Morguefile: free stock photos
nappy.co Beautiful, high-res photos of black and brown people. For free.
NASA Images Official NASA photographs from agency photographers. Also has historic images on Flickr
National Gallery of Art (U.S.) Images Open Access policy and images for artwork believed to be in the public domain.
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Photo Library
If using an image, please credit NOAA and photographer, if noted, as well as their affiliated organization.
New York Public Library (Public Domain Images) Over 900,000 digitized items, with many in Public Domain. Searchable "by Public Domain" only check box. Includes old maps, prints, photographs, manuscripts, streaming videos, and more.
The Noun Project Icons and vector images. Most images require attribution.
Openclipart.org All CC0 Creative Commons licensed
Openi (Open Access Biomedical Images) National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health
Open Oregon: Open Images Recommended places to search for openly licensed images. Some collections are for specific person groups.
OpenVerse
Portal for searching various sites for Creative Commons images, audio, video, and other media.
Pexels Free stock photos with Creative Commons Zero license. No "credit" or "attribution" required.
Picjumbo Free stock photos
Picography All CCO images.
PICRYL
Pixabay
Public Domain Images for Artists (lists and links) Find public domain images available from museum collections.
Public Domain Images Resources Wikipedia Public Domain image resources
Public Domain Pictures.net Not all images are free to use. Check licenses and information carefully.
Public Domain Review (Sources) Showing sources for online content aggregators, institutions, and openly licensed collections
Public Health Image Library (PHIL) Photos, illustrations, and videos from the Center for Diseases Control and Prevention site. Includes typical health-related items, plus everyday activities, natural disasters, environmental health, and other collections. Check copyright restrictions at the bottom of each image for use information specific to that image.
Public Work Public domain images from online archives and institutions
Rijksmuseum (Images)
Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895: As seen in prints and archives Exhibition from the British Library and Japan Center for Asian Historical Resorces (JACAR)
Skitterphoto Public domain and CCO licensed photos
Smithsonian Open Access Almost 3 million 2D and 3D digital images from the Smithsonian Collections, reflecting their 19 museums, nine research centers, libraries, archives, and the National Zoo.Images from other sources (such as British Museum) are also included. Check Creative Commons license for each work.
Startup Stock Photos Free startup, office, and tech stock photos.
Stockio Free Photos, Vectors, Icons, Fonts and Videos for personal and commercial use
Stocksnap.io Each image has a Creative Commons CC0 license.
Stockvault Free stock photos. New photos, textures,and illustrations added regularly.
Storyset Multiple styles of illustrations. Change colors, background detail (or hidden), animation, etc. Illustrations shown in layers, so it's easy to hide elements (or unhide them).
U.S. Department of Agriculture Image Gallery Nearly all images are in the public domain; those that are not in public domain are marked.
U.S.G.S. Multimedia Gallery Collections of pictures, slideshows, animations, audio recordings, and educational videos from the U.S. Geological Survey.
U.S. Government Photos Always check for image rights! Many government images may be available for free use.
Ultimate List of 100 Free Stock Photo Sites for 2021 This large list includes some sites broken out here, as well as some not-as-well-known resources. ALWAYS check licenses as some for-fee stock photos may be mixed in a collection.
University of California San Francisco (UCSF) US Government Image Collection links
Unsplash Free-to-use photos
Videvo
Wikimedia Commons Large collection of public domain and Creative Commons images, sounds, maps, and other media.
Women of Color in Tech photo collection Attribute photos to the main site, WOCinTech. Many image resolutions available.
Yale University Art Gallery (New Haven, CT)

Last updated on Mar 7, 2025 3:03 PM

Images

Image Collections - Art Museums

Art Publications (Books, Exhibitions, Catalogues, and more!)

Image Collections - Academic Collections

Images Collections - Other

Recommended Image Repositories

Art Publications
(Books, Exhibitions, Catalogues, and more!)