Yesterday we posted about opportunities to visit area museums for free. But what if you can’t get to the museum, or the museum you’d like to visit is in another city — or country? In many cases, it will come to you via the Internet. Here are just a few museums that offer valuable links full of free information:
Search the entire collection at LACMA (L.A. County Museum of Art) by curatorial area, chronology, or object type.
The Getty’s Open Content Program offers some 4,600 high-resolution images of public domain works from the museum’s collection. All are free to use, modify, and publish for any purpose. Additionally, there are over 100 videos that explore the Museum’s collection, artistic techniques, conservation, and exhibitions.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York offers five decades of Met Publications on art history, available to read, download, and/or search for free. You can also search the entire museum collection of over 400,000 items.
Search the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston by category.
Search selected highlights from the many research resources online at the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C.
Search the full collection at the British Museum in London.
Thousands of works from the Musée National d’Art Moderne in Paris are available online at the Centre Pompidou (website is in French).
And there are many more. The Department of Art and Art History at the University of Colorado in Boulder has compiled a list of museums selected for the quality and scope of their online collections. You can also search the Internet for your favorite museum to see if their collection is available, too. ~ Enjoy your visit, in person or online!
