LibGuides: Open Access: Open Access Art and Images

Open Access Art and Images

The MET Collection
452,604 records from the Metropolitan Museum of Art Online Collection.
Art Institute Chicago: Search the Collection
Princeton University Art Museum: Search the Collection
Ad*Access from the Duke University Libraries' Digital Repository
The Ad*Access Project presents images and information for over 7,000 advertisements printed in U.S. and Canadian newspapers and magazines between 1911 and 1955. Ad*Access concentrates on five main subject areas: Radio, Television, Transportation, Beauty and Hygiene, and World War II, providing a coherent view of a number of major campaigns and companies through images preserved in one particular advertising collection available at Duke University.
Cleveland Museum of Art: Search the Collections
The New York Public Library Digital Collections
Explore 729,730 items digitized from The New York Public Library's collections. This site is a living database with new materials added every day, featuring prints, photographs, maps, manuscripts, streaming video, and more.
National Park Service Multimedia Search
Multimedia credited to NPS without any copyright symbol are public domain. Multimedia credited with a copyright symbol (indicating that the creator may maintain rights to the work) or credited to any entity other than NPS must not be presumed to be public domain; contact the host park or program to ascertain who owns the material.
National Science Foundation Multimedia Gallery
USDA ARS Image Gallery
This Image Gallery is a complimentary source of high-quality digital photographs available from the Agricultural Research Service Office of Communications.
USGS Images
Explore our planet through photography and imagery, including climate change and water all the way back to the 1800s when the USGS was surveying the country by horse and buggy.
USGS Maps
Our programs produce accurate geologic maps and 3-D geologic frameworks that provide critical data for sustaining and improving the quality of life and economic vitality of the Nation. They also organize, maintain, and publish the geospatial baseline of the Nation's topography, natural landscape, built environment and more.
USDA: NRCS Photo Gallery
The NRCS Photo Gallery contains natural resource and conservation related photos from across the USA.
CDC Public Health Image Library
PHIL offers an organized, universal electronic gateway to CDC's pictures. We welcome public health professionals, the media, laboratory scientists, educators, students, and the worldwide public to use this material for reference, teaching, presentation, and public health messages.
United States Antarctic Program Photo Library
Louvre: Search the Collection
Guggenheim: Search the Collection
Smithsonian American Art Museum: Search the Collection
Smithsonian Open Access
You can download, share, and reuse millions of the Smithsonian’s images. With new platforms and tools, you have easier access to nearly 3 million 2D and 3D digital items from the Smithsonian collections.
Rijksstudio
Browse 620,338 works of art and 382,724 Rijksstudios (Museum).
Moma: Search the Collection
Getty Museum - Open Content Program
The Getty makes available, without charge, all available digital images to which the Getty holds the rights or that are in the public domain to be used for any purpose. No permission is required.
The Getty: Search the Collection
Public Collection from Artstor
Wellcome Collection
Find thousands of Creative Commons licensed images from historical library materials and museum objects to contemporary digital photographs.
Photos Public Domain
Free stock photos.
Flickr: Biodiversity Heritage LIbrary
The Biodiversity Heritage Library improves research methodology by collaboratively making biodiversity literature openly available to the world as part of a global biodiversity community.
Pixaby
Free images and videos you can use anywhere. Pixabay is a vibrant community of creatives, sharing copyright free images and videos. All contents are released under Creative Commons CC0, which makes them safe to use without asking for permission or giving credit to the artist - even for commercial purposes.
Photos for Class
Teachers have told us they need a place to access safe images that are available to be used in the classroom and for educational purposes. Plus, they want accurate image citations. We’ve heard you and created “Photos For Class” to meet your needs for images! Age Appropriate Images - All images are appropriate for the school setting, thanks to Flicker SafeSearch and our proprietary filters - Automatic Citation - Downloaded images automatically cite the author and the image license terms -and Creative Commons - All photos shown are, to the best of our (and Flickr's) knowledge, licensed by Creative Commons for public use.
Open Parks Network
Since 2010, Clemson University and the National Park Service have collaborated on the Open Parks Network, an Institute of Museum and Library Services funded project that has resulted in the digitization of over 350,000 cultural heritage objects and 1.5 million pages of gray literature housed in the libraries, museums, and archives of our nation’s parks, historic sites, and other protected areas. More than 20 national parks and other protected sites are represented in these diverse collections, as well as 2 state park systems and 3 university libraries. The Open Parks Network provides public access to high-resolution, downloadable files.
Open Photo
Free stock photos.
Google Arts & Culture
Google Arts & Culture is an online platform through which the public can access high-resolution images of artworks housed in the initiative’s partner museums.
Artcyclopedia
Provides access to 9,000 artists, 2,900 sites index, and 160,000 links.
Disabled And Here Collection
This stock collection is a disability-led effort to provide free and inclusive images from our own perspective, with photos and illustrations celebrating disabled Black, Indigenous, people of color (BIPOC).
Openverse (Creative Commons Search)
Search through a variety of sources for materials that you can use in your own work.

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Please note that search.creativecommons.org is not a search engine, but rather offers convenient access to search services provided by other independent organizations. CC has no control over the results that are returned. Do not assume that the results displayed in this search portal are under a CC license. You should always verify that the work is actually under a CC license by following the link. Since there is no registration to use a CC license, CC has no way to determine what has and hasn't been placed under the terms of a CC license. If you are in doubt you should contact the copyright holder directly, or try to contact the site where you found the content.
The Stocks
Free stock photos.
Unsplash
Over 1 million photos that can be freely downloaded and used for either commercial and non-commercial purposes, no permission needed (though attribution is appreciated!).
VADS
Over 140,000 images from over 300 art and design collections in the UK, free for use in education.