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Art & Art History: Find Books

Newly Added Art & Art History Books

Finding Books

Books are an important resource for art historical research. While some are available as ebooks, many are only available in physical form. To search for books, use the following:

  • BYU Library ScholarSearch
    Find physical books and ebooks (as well as other materials) in the BYU Library collection.
  • WorldCat
    Search for books on your topic in libraries nationwide. If BYU does not own a book you're interested in, order it through Interlibrary Loan!
  • Art Discovery Group Catalogue
    The Art Discovery Group Catalogue (ADGC) brings together into one freely accessible search interface millions of records for art resources, many previously not discoverable through OCLC, including Kubikat citations and SCIPIO auction catalog records.

*If you search for a book and find that the BYU Library doesn't have it, we'll get it for you free of charge from another library through Interlibrary Loan!*

eBooks

Subject Headings for Art Books

Art books are cataloged (i.e. organized by call numbers) in the library according to the following subject patterns:

MEDIUM | ex: painting, sculpture, installation

NATIONALITY | ex: art, French; painting, American

GENRE | ex: landscape painting; portrait painting

TIME PERIOD | ex: art, modern--21st century; painting, French--19th century

STYLE/MOVEMENT | ex: baroque; impressionism (art)

Art Call Numbers


Level 5  |  FLOOR MAP

N     visual arts in general
NA  architecture
NB  sculpture
NC  drawing, design, illustration
ND  painting
NE  prints
NK  design, decorative arts
NX  visual and performing arts
TR  photography
Z 40-286  typography

Additional Sources for Digitized Art Books

Catalogues Raisonnés

A catalogue raisonné is a comprehensive, annotated listing of all the known works of an artist either in a particular medium or all media and may provide information like provenance, exhibition history, bibliographies, critical assessments, etc. (NYPL definition)

Catalogue raisonnés are rich and helpful research sources. To determine if an artist has any published catalogues raisonnés (in physical or digitized/electronic format), search the International Foundation for Art Research's (IFAR) Catalogue Raisonnés database

To search for a specific artist's catalogue raisonné in the BYU Library collection, search for the artist's Last Name, First Name in combination with "catalogues raisonnes" in the Subject field.

Example: Subject (field) contains Klint, Hilma af AND catalogues raisonnes (search terms

Find a current list of catalogues raisonnés in the BYU Library.

Museum and Exhibition Catalogs

Exhibition Catalogs are books published in conjunction with a museum exhibition. They include a list of artworks included in the exhibition, along with scholarly essays. To find exhibition catalogs related to a specific artist in the BYU Library collection, search using the artist's name in combination with the keyword "exhibitions". Example: Monet AND exhibitions

Museum Catalogs are catalogs of a museum's permanent artwork collection. To find catalogs for a specific museum in the BYU Library collection, search the name of the museum in combination with the keyword "catalog" in the Subject field and limit the Resource Type to "Books". Example: Metropolitan Museum of Art AND catalog