Images - Visual Arts - Guides de recherche · Research guides at University of Ottawa

Artistic works and copyright

Canadian Copyright law protects creative endeavours by ensuring that the creator has the sole right to authorize their publication, performance or reproduction. Among artistic works, copyright applies to all original paintings, drawings, maps, photographs, and sculptures.

Protection under copyright laws is automatic in Canada: as soon as an original work has been written down, recorded or entered as a computer file, it is immediately copyright-protected.

Copyright entitlement generally endures for the lifetime of the creator, the remainder of the calendar year in which the creator dies, and for 50 years after the end of that calendar year.

Essential Resources

Artstor via JSTOR
Artstor includes over 2 million images from museums, archives, scholars, and artists, for education and research.

The Artstor website will be retired next year on August 1, 2024, but you can access the Artstor images on JSTOR now

Canada

Canadian Art Database
The Canadian Art Database is a project of the Centre for Contemporary Canadian Art (CCCA). It consists of an ever-growing image/text database presenting information on Canadian artists and writers, and their work. It also includes an extensive directory of links to other Canadian art Web sites.
Images Canada (Government of Canada)
Provides central search access to the thousands of images held on the websites of participating Canadian cultural institutions.
Library and Archives Canada
Includes many digitized image collections by topic (aboriginal peoples, politics and government, sports, war and military, art and photography, literature music etc.) Permission requirements vary by collection.
National Gallery of Canada
The National Gallery of Canada is home to the most important collections of historical and contemporary Canadian art. The Gallery also maintains Canada's premier collection of European Art from the 14th to the 21st century, as well as important works of American, Asian and Indigenous Art and renowned international collections of prints, drawings and photographs.

Other Guides

Images - Research guide

Art Images

Google Art Project
N.B. Works best with Google Chrome browser.
A collaboration between Google and 151 acclaimed art partners from across 40 countries, Google Art Project offers a unique online art experience. Viewers can explore a wide range of artworks at brushstroke level detail, take a virtual tour of a museum and even build their own collections to share.
Joconde
A database of works of art and art objects in French museums.
Met Museum: works of art
Works of Art is composed of the nearly 6,000 works featured on the Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History and does not include all of the works in The Metropolitan Museum of Art's collection. This search feature does not include information about the subject matter of the works of art.
Vatican Museums
One of the largest collection of artworks in the world.
Web Gallery of Art
The Web Gallery of Art is a virtual museum and searchable database of European painting and sculpture of the Romanesque, Gothic, Renaissance, Baroque, Neoclassicism, Romanticism periods (1000-1850), currently containing over 23.200 reproductions.
Wellcome Images
Over 100,00 images ranging from medieval manuscripts to etchings by Van Gogh and Goya. All available for free downlonad in high resolution.
Ad*Access
Over 7,000 U.S. and Canadian advertisements covering five product categories - Beauty and Hygiene, Radio, Television, Transportation, and World War II propaganda - dated between 1911 and 1955
Art Images for College Teaching
Art Images for College Teaching (AICT) began as a personal project dedicated to the principle of free exchange of image resources for and among members of the educational community.
VADS
VADS provides a national collection of over 140,000 images from over 300 art and design collections across the UK, which are freely available for non-commercial use in education. The images cover the broad range of the visual arts including applied arts, architecture, design, fashion, fine art, and media.