LibGuides: TH 350: Cultural and Historical Perspectives for Theatre: Home

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Lindsay Hansen Brown

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Subjects: Accounting, Business and Economics, Economics, Marketing, Music, Theatre

Research art and artists

Oxford Art Online
Gateway to online art resources: Grove Art Online, comprising the full text of The Dictionary of Art; The Oxford Companion to Western Art; The Encyclopedia of Aesthetics; and The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Art Terms. Access restricted to 1 user at a time.

Online Archive of California
Discover which institution (gallery, library, museum) may have holdings related to your artist!
Calisphere
Connected to OAC, use this tool to discover digital content held by museums, libraries, and galleries in California.
DPLA (Digital Public Library of America
Similar to Calisphere, use this tool to discover digital content held by museums, libraries, and galleries across the US.
Met Collection
The Met has a wonderful and easy to search database of over 490,000 works of art from their collection. It includes chronological information about where the works fall within a timeline of art history and related essays written by their curators/scholars.
Europeana
Europeana provides access to digitized materials from over 3,000 archives, libraries and museums across Europe from major institutions like the British Library and the Louvre to small regional archives and local museums. A great resource when researching European art, architecture, and cultural heritage.

Visual and historical resources

JSTOR
JSTOR has absorbed ArtSTOR, so you can use it to search images as well as articles. Note: if you are using Chrome, you may need to clear your cache/browsing history or your search results can be inaccurate.

Guide to finding images on JSTOR
If you have only used ArtSTOR or you've only used JSTOR for articles, this will be a helpful guide to getting started finding images.

Bloomsbury Fashion Central
Provides cross-searchable access to interdisciplinary and integrated text, image, and journal content on world dress and fashion. Includes the Berg Encyclopedia of World Dress and Fashion, a specially-created taxonomy, an e-book collection, and an extensive color image bank as well as other resources. Access restricted to 3 users at a time.
Los Angeles Times (ProQuest Historical Newspapers)
Full-page and article images from the Los Angeles Daily Times (1881-1886) and the Los Angeles Times (1886-2014).
New York Times (ProQuest Historical Newspapers)
Digital archive offering full-text and full-image articles for the New York Times from 1851-2012.
Times Digital Archive
Complete digital edition of The Times (London, England).

Art Directors Guild Archives
The Guild has curated a list of free online resources that can help you as production designers.
Herrick Library (Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences)
Information on visiting the Herrick in Beverly Hills. It is open to all researchers and has one of a kind resources.
Entertainment Industry Magazine Archive
Available via LAPL, you can browse American Cinematographer back to 1930, plus other trades and popular magazines.
Exhibition Catalogs
The library has some e-books of exhibition catalogs, which can help you think about how to organize artwork for your Virtual Museum Visit.
Google Arts and Culture
Visit museums virtually.
LIFE Magazine
Searchable, browsable digital versions of issues 1936-1972, hosted by Google.
Media History Project
Historical film/radio/television magazines, including trades and fan titles. Freely available with no login.
Museum secrets (video series)
Though a little dated, these videos give you a backstage tour of the world's famous museums, including the Met.
Overdrive Magazines
Also available through LAPL, this collection offers full color magazines like Vogue, Elle, and other fashion titles helpful for costume research.
Vogue Archive
With an LAPL card, you can access the complete archive of Vogue.
Walker Art Center: online catalogs
The Walker is part of a project run by the Getty, where contemporary art museums are making their exhibition catalogs available online.
Worth & Mainbocher exhibit
This is a digital exhibit from the Museum of the City of New York: you can either use this as a "visit" or you can consider how it's organized, including the exhibition copy.
Conversations about Research (Costume Designers Guild)
Brief interview with a costume designer on the importance of researching using libraries, magazines, newspapers, and personal connections.