All Things Visual: The University of Chicago Visual Resources Center

In honor of the upcoming holiday weekend, check out the Farber Gravestone Collection in LUNA Commons:

The Farber Gravestone Collection is an unusual resource documenting the sculpture on over 9,000 gravestones most of which were made prior to 1800… These early stones are both a significant form of artistic creation and precious records of biographical information, now subject to vandalism and to deterioration from the environment.

Or get costume-inspired by browsing images in ARTstor. Marilyn Monroe? Spooky bride? Witch teacher? Zombie/punk on the CTA? Cat/sad pumpkin? The possibilities are endless!

(Please note: links will not work unless you are on the University of Chicago campus or have logged into LUNA/ARTstor remotely).

ARTstor has partnered with the Visual Resources Collections at Skidmore College’s Lucy Scribner Library to digitize approximately 850 images of Pre-Columbian objects and sites from the Southwest United States, Central America, South America, Europe, and Egypt. These images were selected from a collection of over 8,000 slides created by alumna Moreen O’Brien Maser (Class of 1926). From 1938-1970, Maser traveled with her husband, Herman, to various archaeological sites and modern cities in the American Southwest, Mexico, Honduras, Guatemala, Peru, Trinidad and Tobago, Greece, Italy, and Egypt. Of particular note are the Mesoamerican images, which provide documentary evidence for sites that have been more fully excavated and/or damaged due to environmental and human degradation since being photographed by the Masers more than 50 years ago.

To browse the Moreen O’Brien Maser Memorial Collection, click here.

Earlier this month, ARTstor released updated and redesigned subject guides. These tools, in PDF format, provide subject-specific search strategies for twenty-two areas: African and African American Studies; American Studies; Anthropology; Architecture and the Built Environment; Asian Studies; Classical Studies; Design; Decorative Arts; Fashion and Costume; History of Medicine and Natural Science; Languages and Literature; Latin American Studies; Maps and Geography; Medieval Studies; Middle Eastern Studies; Music History; Native American Studies; Photography; Religious Studies; Renaissance Studies; Theater and Dance; and Women’s Studies.  You can view and download these subject guides here.

ARTstor has collaborated with the School of Architecture, Faculty of Architecture and Planning at Dalhousie University to make available approximately 250 images of architecture by Le Corbusier in the Digital Library. The images have been selected from a collection of slides donated to Dalhousie University by the family of Paul Jobin, which are housed in the School of Architecture’s Slide Library.

To view the Corbusier (Dalhousie University) collection, go to the ARTstor Digital Library (select on or off-campus here), browse by collection, and click on “Corbusier (Dalhousie University);” or search the keywords: corbusier dalhousie.

For more detailed information about this collection, visit the Le Corbusier (Dalhousie University) collection page.

Credo Reference, the award winning online reference library, now includes National Gallery London images in the Credo General Reference Collection. Credo Reference is available through the University of Chicago library by clicking here.

Credo has licensed high resolution images of the paintings in the National Gallery. Students and faculty can now easily find quality images from this museum to aid their research. This page includes a browsable list of the National Gallery images available through Credo.

ARTstor and The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) have just launched more than 1,400 images of works from the MoMA’s permanent collection in the Digital Library. The images have been selected from the museum’s unparalleled collection of modern and contemporary painting and sculpture. The works in the Department of Painting and Sculpture represent a comprehensive overview of major artists and artistic movements from the late 19th century to the present.

To view the collection after logging in, search for: moma “painting and sculpture”

20th Century Design is now included in the Artnet.com auction results database.
From Tiffany lamps to Ponti chairs and Newson lounges, Artnet has expanded the largest fully-illustrated arts database to include modern and contemporary design. For more information, please contact Nancy Spiegel, Bibliographer for Art and Cinema.

We’ve made many improvements over the summer in the classrooms and our digital image collections. Our new digital image delivery system offers over thirty thousand images created at the VRC as well as the AMICA digital image collection of 108,000+ high quality images from American art museums.

If you have questions about using these images in classroom presentations, please contact the VRC. We can show you how to use digital image collections (Luna Insight, AMICA, ArtStor, Saskia), presentation software (Powerpoint, Keynote, ArtStor OIV), classroom and scanning equipment.

From the Aluka website:

Aluka, a not-for-profit, collaborative and international initiative, announces the release of its online digital library of scholarly resources from and about Africa. ‘Aluka’ is derived from a Zulu word meaning ‘to weave,” reflecting Aluka’s mission to connect resources and scholars from around the world.

Aluka’s partners have contributed materials ranging from archival documents, periodicals, books, reports, manuscripts, and reference works, to three-dimensional models, maps, oral histories, plant specimens, photographs, and slides. The African Cultural Heritage Sites and Landscapes database links high-quality visual, contextual, and spatial documentation. The Aluka digital library includes photographs, 3D models, GIS data, site plans, aerial and satellite photography, images of African rock art, excavation reports, manuscripts, traveller’s accounts, historical and antiquarian maps, books, articles, and other scholarly research.

This resource is available at the University of Chicago on a trial basis until December 31, 2007. Please direct comments to Rob Pleshar in the University Libraries or to the VRC.