Research

Reference Materials

Reference materials give you a general overview of a person or topic. They can be a good starting point, since many of the entries are written by leading scholars in the field, and entries often include bibliographies.

• Grove Art Online:
  The best place to start; articles on thousands of artists, countries, and media. Updated more frequently than the print version.


• Oxford Reference Books Online / Art Section:
  Online access to six of Oxford's art reference books.


• Contemporary Artists / DEN Ref N6490 .C6567 2002


• ArtSTOR:
  An online collection of over 400,000 digital images.

Finding Books

Follow these steps to find books about artists:

1. Use the OhioLINK Central Catalog to do a SUBJECT search. Enter your artist's name as Lastname, Firstname. This will bring up all the books by or about your artist, divided up by the type of book (e.g., "Exhibitions," "Criticism & Interpretation")
   >>More about the types of books unique to art & artists...



2. Print out or e-mail your relevant results by following these steps:
   • Add items to your "Saved List" in one of the following ways:
     • From the BROWSE screen, click "Mark All On Page" OR, to save selected items, click "Save Marked Records."
     • From the ITEM screen, click "Save for Export."
   • To get to the Saved List, click "View Saved Records."
   • To print the list, click "Screen" under "Send List To." Make sure "Full Display" is selected under quot;Format of List."
   • A new printer-formatted screen should appear with all the items you saved.



3. Request items directly through OhioLINK--just click "Request this Item" and follow the directions.

You can also use the Contemporary Artists Index to find exhibition catalogs. This resource allows you to find artists that may have participated in group exhibitions as well as individual shows.

Types of books that are unique to art:

• Artist Monographs
  Books by or about artists that are published independent of any museum or gallery exhibition. Usually, monographs are in-depth writings that analyze or provide context for an artist and his/her work.
  ***To find monographs, look for words like "Criticism and Interpretation" in the subject search results.



• Exhibition Catalogs
  Document museum and gallery shows. Exhibition catalogs are the best source for high-quality images of an artist's work. Also, many exhibition catalogs include artist biographies, curatorial essays, artist interviews and/or writings, and career chronologies.
  ***Exhibition catalogs will appear in your subject search with the word "Exhibitions" as part of the subject heading.



• Catalogue Raisonne
  A complete study of an artist's entire entire body of work (at least in one medium). These usually include images of every piece of work ever created by an artist, along with each piece's provenance/history.
  ***Catalogues raisonnes will appear as a separate item in the list of subject heading terms.