Photo and Art Archives

I’ve said it before. I love that on the Internet, people are making available all sorts of amazing, historical things which can be used for fun or for research or anything else.I remember being a kid and going through years of National Geographic magazines and cutting up the pictures for collages and school projects, or going to the big public library (on Flamingo and Maryland Pkwy, for those from Vegas) and going through the old microfiche files of newspapers and magazines (I remember reading the contemporary account of Lincoln’s assassination in the New York Times and that was phenomenal.

So now, I figure I need a place to kinda store these links, so I can find them again when I need them. This post will be updated as I discover new sites. Although, I suppose Pinterest does pretty much the same thing, I always forget to look there.

Heavy Metal magazine, instrumental in my youth, is archived here.

Let’s start with The British Library – These centuries-old copyright-free images include everything from book illustrations to photos – and cover subjects from flowers to cycling and children’s books to maps. Here’s an article on the topic: The British Library offers over a million free vintage images for download – Digital Arts

Here’s the Library of Congress’ archive of images, while the 2.3 million item collection of the Smithsonian is free for the asking.

The Art Institvte of Chicago has decided that more than 50,000 of their pieces should be made available, in hi resolution, for the public to use as they see fit.

And now 100K images from various Paris museums are available for your use

NASA (The National Aeronautics and Space Administration) has their own archive of space shots available.

Pixabay is a current collection of available photos, free for any use.

Then there’s the simple Public Domain Archive. Just what it sounds like.

Over at Open Culture they have a nice piece about some great online collections, including the list below:

1.8 Million Free Works of Art from World-Class Museums: A Meta List of Great Art Available Online

Download Over 250 Free Art Books From the Getty Museum

The Smithsonian has opened their archives up for use

2,000+ Architecture & Art Books You Can Read Free at the Internet Archive

The Metropolitan Museum of Art Puts 400,000 High-Res Images Online & Makes Them Free to Use

The Guggenheim Puts 109 Free Modern Art Books Online

800 Free eBooks for iPad, Kindle & Other Devices