Artcyclopedia
(http://www.artcyclopedia.com/index.html)
A large, well-maintained linking site with a database of more than 7000 artists listed by alphabet, movement, medium, subject and nationality and many interesting and useful side features, ads and such like. The problem is that you are sent to a gallery or museum instead of a specific painting, so be prepared at times to navigate in the trackless wastes of the internet.
Artlex Art Dictionary
(http://www.artlex.com/)
This site does not have an alphabetized artist list as such but it is so well designed and intelligently organized and has so many artists of all kinds available through their search function and within listed categories we felt compelled to add it to our image finder. Aside from an occasional pop-up ad it is a joy to navigate. And, of course, it is an excellent art dictionary - should you need one - loaded with well-selected thumbnailed images and cross reference hyperlinks.
artnet
(http://www.artnet.com/)
Enormous alphabetical listing of a hodge-podge of mostly contemporary artists linking to gallery sites, most with images. A good place to find images by less well-known recent artists. It also has an excellent "recent auctions" feature with images and prices listed numerically for numerous auction houses, and a smorgasbord of art market features.
Art Resource Inc.
(http://artres.com/)
Art Resource is a commercial archive that calls itself the "world's largest photo archive of art". You must register with them and answer a few questions, and the images you will get are not large and are marked by an annoying "art resource" phrase unless you pay a fee for a transparency, as explained in their terms of use. The cross-referencing is very elaborate.
AskART
(http://askart.com/)
Huge site listing tens of thousands of North American artists, linking each artist with numerous subject categories (dealers, museums holding work, auction prices, biographies, book and periodical references) and featuring a number of interesting categorical assortments and other details. They even have the value per square inch of highest auction price of an artist's work.They charge for membership but we keep ASKART on our list because of its comprehensiveness and the information still available free.
Ciudad de la Pintura
(http://pintura.aut.org/)
Vast list of artists. Go to "Lista general de autores" and open the alphabetical list of artists with good quality medium size images, 120,000, by their claim. The awkward categorization of individual artist's work and the language might be a problem, but the site is infinitely rich.
Google
(http://www.google.com)
Google has an image search in it's opening window and it is a very quick and easy way to get large numbers of images by any artist. Just click the "image" tab, enter a name and immediately get page after page of thumbs. Of course it can be a navigation nightmare, and you may have a hard time finding what you want in usable resolution.
Mark Harden's Artchive
(http://www.artchive.com/ftp_site_reg.htm)
A large site with a somewhat eccentric alphabetical list of artists in the left frame and a nice breakdown of art movements in the right frame. Most of the images are quite large.
Olga's Gallery
(http://www.abcgallery.com/index.html)
Olga does not go up much beyond the early 20th C. but, aside from a couple of annoying pop-ups and animated ads the site is very clear and straightforward and lists hundreds of artists. Some of the best known Impressionists and Modernists are represented by hundreds of excellent large images.
Web Gallery of Art
(http://www.wga.hu/)
No modernism here; Web Gallery does not get past about mid-19th C. But there are huge quantities of huge images. A first-rate image site.
WebMuseum
(http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth)
Has a large alphabetized list of artists as well as a "themes index" and an excellent collection of about 100 Cezanne images.
Yahoo artist list
(http://dir.yahoo.com/Arts/Artists/Masters/)
Not an image list as such but a list of artists linking you to various sites related to the artist, most of which have images. Be sure to click "alphabetical" because the default setting is "by popularity".
Artists.org (modern and contemorary)
(http://www.the-artists.org/)
A very large alphabetized list of modern and contemporary artists which takes you to a page with various information about the artist some of which will have links to images of varying quality.
Tigertail
(http://tigtail.org/L_View/TVM/E/information.htm)
A very personal selection of art new & old. More for browsing than research.
Abstract Illusionists and Lyrical AbEx (modern and contemporary abstract painting)
(http://abstract-art.com/a00_index_folder/a10_artist_list.html)
Nicely designed site featuring excellent work from many of the overlooked abstract artists who came to maturity in the 60s and 70s.
Center for Contemporary Canadian Artists (Canadian contemporary art)
(http://www.ccca.ca/)
A list of about 300 contemporary Canadian artists - many excellent landscape and abstract painters among them - with thousands of images. The site is oddly designed and navigation can be a bit tricky.
Distinguished Artists (deceased American artists)
(http://www.tfaoi.com/distingu/alvarez.htm)
Less an image site than a list of over 2,500 deceased American representational artists in alphabetical order linking to pages with information and perhaps pictures.
The Fauves Page (Fauve painting
(http://www.SanderHome.com/Fauves/)
Nice site, simply designed, with lots of images of Fauve paintings.
Goodwood (modern and contemporary British sculptors)
(http://www.sculpture.org.uk/homepage/)
Brief bio and one or more images of the work of several hundred British sculptors.
Albright-Knox Art Gallery
(http://www.albrightknox.org/)
The Albright-Knox has "search the collection" right on the main page, but the search function may or may not take you to an artists list - often the wrong one - and the pages will not open.
Ackland Art Museum
(http://www.ackland.org/)
The Ackland has its priorities right: "Search the Collection" is right there on the opening page. There is an alphabetical list by which you can determine if an artist is in the collection and a search function to look for the work. Images, when available, are large and good quality.
Boston Museum of Fine Arts
(http://www.mfa.org/collections/search_art.asp)
The search function seems to access most of their large collection but many of the results do not yield images, especially for the more modern work. The images you do obtain are large and very good. Also it is a "word" search; if the name is at all common you will get much you are not looking for, so it is best to use the artist's first and last name.
The Brooklyn Museum
(http://www.brooklynmuseum.org/research/luce/)
The search function may or may not return a small image by the artist you are looking for.
Chicago Art Institute
(http://www.artic.edu/aic/collections/index.php)
There is a drop-down menu of artist's names by the search function. Some return a small image, some return nothing.
Fort Lauderdale Museum of Art
(http://www.moafl.org/)
Fort Lauderdale offers no access to the collections.
The Guggenheim Museum
(http://www.guggenheimcollection.org/index.html)
The Guggenheim has a selection of about a hundred artists with fairly good enlargeable images. The search function is unhelpful.
The Hermitage Museum
(http://www.hermitagemuseum.org/fcgi-bin/db2www/browse.mac/typeIndex?selLang=English&selCateg=picture)
The "browse by artist" feature gives good large-size pictures, if not of everything in the entire collection certainly a lot of it. This is how it should be done.
The Los Angeles County Museum of Art
(http://collectionsonline.lacma.org/mwebcgi/mweb.exe?request=vview701)
They boast over 45,000 images, and they have a long list of artists and records of work but you have to make an appointment to see the images. So, fly to LA.
Museum of Modern Art
(http://www.moma.org/collection/artist_index.php?start_initial=K&end_initial=O&unparsed_search=2)
Our link is to the set of artists listed by alphabet. It is clearly not their full collection, there is a low ratio of images to works listed and the selection seems eccentric, but it is a long list.
National Gallery of Art
(http://www.nga.gov/collection/an.shtm)
An alphabetical list of the artists in the collection; some have one or more good medium-size images.
The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art
(http://www.nelson-atkins.org/art/ModernContemporary.cfm)
A few selections only. Tiny images, which, when enlarged, are undownloadable.
Portland Art Museum (Oregon)
(http://www.portlandartmuseum.org/)
Go to "collections", make your choice of collection, check "show objects" and you will get a few very good large images. There is no search function.
Tate Gallery
(http://www.tate.org.uk/servlet/ArtistA2Z)
One of the few large museums which has gotten around to listing their collection alphabetically with images.
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
(http://collections.sfmoma.org/kiosk/advanced_search.htm)
No alphabetical list. Search by artist's name but don't expect to find that many images, and those you do find are not large.
Smithsonian American Art Museum
(http://americanart.si.edu/search/search_artists.cfm)
The Smithsonian is all business. There is an excellent, simple, clear search function to their huge collection, with medium to large images of (apparently) well over half the works listed. A fine basic resource.
Walker Art Center
(http://collections.walkerart.org/)
The web page is a designer's nightmare. Click "artist" and you will find a search function. Type in the name you want and you may or may not get some images. Many things they have images of do not come up in the search, and once you get an image you have to enlarge it several times to get the largest size.
The Whitney Museum of American Art
(http://www.whitney.org/www/collection/index.jsp)
The collections page gives you a choice of "slide show", which i could not get to work, or AMICO, which charges for images. Useless.
Yale University Art Gallery
(http://artgallery.yale.edu/)
Go to the collection and choose a type and get a square of 36 thumbs, some cropped enough to make identification impossible, and you will get some often poor images of some very good paintings in their collection. The search function does not specifically locate images.
1. Quality or academic interest of the art.
2. Alphabetical listing or search by artist's name on the site.
3. Direct link to images, good images and ease of use.
4. Numerous 19th and 20th C. images.
These are the best we have found so far. It is our guess that the Large Alphabetized Sites contain well over half the worthwhile fine art images of the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries on the web.
If you know about something we have missed please email wbannard@aol.com