Henri Matisse | Still Life with Gourds, 1916. | Image © 2010 The Barnes Foundation. All Rights Reserved. | © 2009 Henri Matisse / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.
The ARTstor Digital Library now makes available more than 1.3 million images in the United States and over one million images internationally, and we have another million images in our production queue. Collections continue to grow rapidly, with some 160,000 new images released from 55 new and expanded collections in the past year. ARTstor also reached agreements for 26 new collections, including: Guggenheim Museum; the Courtauld Institute; Museum of the City of New York; Pre-Columbian Artifacts from the Kerr Archives; Columbia University: Architecture of Japan; ART on FILE: United Arab Emirates; Via Lucis: Medieval Christian churches in France and Spain; Julius Shulman (Getty Research Institute); University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign: University Library, and more. Today, these diverse and excellent collections serve interdisciplinary teaching and research needs across museums, schools, and campuses in 46 countries.
Every week we receive queries about contributing collections from around the world, and we are now working on new collaborations with institutions in France, the Netherlands, Germany, Taiwan, Canada, England, Mexico, Scandinavia, Ireland, Belgium, and many other countries. As institutions and individuals strive to make their important collections known and accessible to educational and scholarly users, ARTstor has become an increasingly valuable channel for serving just that purpose. Not only are collections in ARTstor reaching those faculty, curators, educators, librarians, and students interested in cultural heritage materials, but the audience for the ARTstor Digital Library has expanded to encompass those in the fields of Literary Studies, Foreign Languages, Religion, Psychology, Economics, Politics, World History, Environmental Studies, Natural Science, American Studies, Women’s Studies, Early Childhood Education, Middle Eastern Studies, and more.
Our Travel Awards 2011—five awards of $1,500 to the authors of the best essays and image groups describing how they teach and research with ARTstor—demonstrated that ARTstor collections are reaching across disciplines to serve faculty, scholars, and students in areas well beyond the history art.
Uncut imperial dragon robe with twelve symbols, 1796-1820. Musée Guimet (Paris, France). Photographer: Thierry Ollivier. Image and original data provided by Réunion des Musées Nationaux / Art Resource, N.Y.
This year’s winners include: Colette Apelian, Fine Art faculty, Berkeley City College, who wrote about Online Teaching and Architectural Solutions to Climate Problems in the Islamic World; Keri Cronin, Department of Visual Arts faculty, Brock University, who examined animal rights through historical and contemporary paintings, fashion, and photography in her essay, Picturing Animals; Jacquelyn DeLombard, Beginnings Pre-School owner/teacher, Philadelphia Museum of Art Teacher Resource Center volunteer, who gave us an inside look at how digital art images can transform the learning experience for pre-school students in her essay, Teaching Shapes, Colors and Size to Young Children; Julia Reinhard Lupton, Professor of English and Comparative Literature, The University of California, Irvine, who discussed how she projects ARTstor images in the classroom as backdrops for students to enact Shakespeare plays in her essay, A Shakespeare Gallery; and finally, Elizabeth Perkins, Columbia University graduate student, who argued compellingly for the value of zooming into details in paintings for the study of art history in her essay, ARTstor: Making the Case for ‘Real’ Paintings in the Classroom.
The ARTstor Digital Library has been strengthened through its seven-year history by the ongoing contributions, subscriptions, and usage of the international community. We would not be able to serve the teaching and research needs in the arts, architecture, humanities, and sciences without the unparalleled support of visual resource curators, librarians, scholars, educators, and students who teach and study every day with ARTstor. Enabling the discovery and utilization of images of rare cultural objects, cutting-edge architectural works, and a broad range of historical, political, social, economic, and cultural documentation from prehistory to the present in a single online workspace is our core mission and we welcome your continued participation and insights into how to continue to improve this growing community-built resource.
—Christine Kuan, Chief Content Officer & Vice President of External Affairs
Wang Xiao'an, East China Architect Design & Research Institute, Shanghai World Expo Cultural Center; twilight view, 2010. Shanghai EXPO, Shanghai, China. Image and original data provided by ART on FILE, http://www.artonfile.com
