This international biographical database of artists contains more than a million artist entries. The database covers painters, graphic designers, sculptors, architects, designers, photographers, calligraphers, craftsmen and many more.
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Encyclopedias, Dictionaries, Reference
Unless otherwise noted, these resources are available at the Art Institute of Chicago, the SAIC campus, or from other locations with an ARTIC username and password.
Types of material covered: Artists' signatures
Dates covered: Provides signatures for artists working from 1400 to the present. International in scope.
Provides biographical and professional data on over 120,000 American artists from the early 16th century through the present.
Types of material covered: Images, biographies, and auction records
Benezit is one of the most comprehensive biographical dictionaries in the field of art history, including coverage of artists across all media, from painters and sculptors to calligraphers, ceramicists, illustrators, installation artists, and performance artists. It includes over 190,000 entries from the first English print edition (2006), plus revisions and new biographies exclusively available online.
Also included are artists' signatures, monograms, stamps of sale, detailed museum listings, bibliographies, exhibition information, and auction records
Benezit is updated three times per year to reflect new scholarship, additions to the bibliographies, and corrections. It is bundled with other Oxford databases, like Grove Art, and can be searched in conjunction or on its own.
Types of material covered: Encyclopedic coverage of all aspects of fine and applied arts and architecture. Also included are biographies, images, and dictionary entries.
Dates covered: All eras
Technical tip: When emailing an article from Oxford Art Online, first save it as a pdf on your desktop and then attach the pdf to your email.
Provides answers to style, format, and editing questions related to manuscript preparation.
Types of material covered: Includes the 15th edition of the Chicago Manual of Style, the Chicago Style Q & A resource, and a Quick Guide with examples of citations.
Provides access to more than 72,000 articles from the print version of the Encyclopedia, as well as access to more than 75,000 definitions from Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary.
Types of material covered: Encyclopedia articles, timelines, atlases, statistics.
Dates covered: Current edition.
General encyclopedia written at the popular level. Includes full-text articles and biographies.
Types of material covered: Encyclopedia articles.
Dates covered: Updated annually.
Provides detailed etymologies for nearly every word in the English language.
Types of material covered: Word definitions and etymologies.
Dates covered: Current edition, updated quarterly.
Provides access to Grove Music Online, The Oxford Dictionary of Music, and The Oxford Companion to Music. All three can be searched simultaneously or separately.
Types of material covered: Encyclopedia articles, illustrations, musical examples.
Dates covered: All eras and cultures are covered.
The British Library's electronic theses online service provides access to over 300,000 theses and dissertations. Many UK institutions support Open Access to their theses, so their digital and digitized theses are free to the researcher. A small number of participating institutions may not be able to offer Open Access and in this case the researcher may have to pay for the digitization.
Access note: Some content is fee based.
SAH Archipedia is an authoritative online encyclopedia of the built world published by the Society of Architectural Historians and the University of Virginia Press, and contains histories, photographs, and maps for more than 8,500 structures and places
