Why Books?
Even in the 2020s most resources on the visual arts are still published in print. You aren't likely to find an e-book version of an exhibition catalog!
Think of the various chapters in a book as similar in scope to scholarly articles. You do not have to read a book cover-to-cover to enhance your understanding on a topic. Instead, pick the most interesting chapters to you, read closely, and trace some of the footnotes/citations which will help you discover more sources to delve a little deeper and identify key scholars and resources. This page explains the different kinds of books available at the Art Library and how to locate them.
Types of Art Books
I. Monographs and Edited Volumes
Academic publications such as monographs & edited volumes that have undergone the peer-review process are considered authoritative and reliable sources of information. While the language might feel esoteric & scholarly, these books are written by experts and thus can help with deeper learning as you research your work of art because the writing is less descriptive (as an art history textbook might be), and more analytical/critical.
Art for People's Sake: artists and community in Black Chicago, 1965-1975 by Call Number: Book Stacks NX512.3.A35 Z67 2019ISBN: 1478001402Publication Date: 2019-03-27In the 1960s and early 1970s, Chicago witnessed a remarkable flourishing of visual arts associated with the Black Arts Movement. From the painting of murals as a way to reclaim public space and the establishment of independent community art centers to the work of the AFRICOBRA collective and Black filmmakers, artists on Chicago's South and West Sides built a vision of art as service to the people. In Art for People's Sake Rebecca Zorach traces the little-told story of the visual arts of the Black Arts Movement in Chicago, showing how artistic innovations responded to decades of racist urban planning that left Black neighborhoods sites of economic depression, infrastructural decay, and violence. Working with community leaders, children, activists, gang members, and everyday people, artists developed a way of using art to help empower and represent themselves. Showcasing the depth and sophistication of the visual arts in Chicago at this time, Zorach demonstrates the crucial role of aesthetics and artistic practice in the mobilization of Black radical politics during the Black Power era.
II. Exhibition Catalogs
Exhibition catalogs are produced to compliment small or large-scale museum/gallery exhibitions. They contain a list of all works exhibited, and often include introductory and contextual essays written by scholars and/or curators. All reliable, authoritative books, such as these, should contain footnotes as well as detailed bibliographies (that list of other sources!), to lead to demonstrate evidence of solid research, and to give credit to other experts in the area you are reading about.
Promise, Witness, Remembrance by Call Number: Book Stacks F459.L853 T39 2022ISBN: 1734248513Publication Date: 2022-08-09The New York Times called the Speed Art Museum's Promise, Witness, Remembrance -- centered around artist Amy Sherald's portrait of Breonna Taylor and originally commissioned by Ta-Nehisi Coates for the cover of Vanity Fair magazine -- one of the best art exhibitions of 2021. In the words of critic Holland Cotter, "the show was assembled in four months -- warp speed in museum-time -- and created a prototype for institutional responses to history-as-it's-happening." This breathtaking book documents not just the 32 works featured in the exhibition, but also the process by which the Speed used this opportunity to memorialize the life of Breonna Taylor, who was killed by Louisville police in March 2020, and to serve its community through art, featuring real-time quotations from Curator Allison Glenn, Community Engagement Strategist Toya Northington, Director Stephen Reily, Tamika Palmer (Breonna Taylor's mother), artist Amy Sherald, and others. With 200 photos, featuring work by 22 Black artists, including Sam Gilliam, Lorna Simpson, Kerry James Marshall, Hank Willis Thomas, and Theaster Gates, Promise, Witness, Remembrance is a vital addition to the canon of Black American art.
III. Catalogue Raisonné
Catalogue raisonnés are scholarly compilations of an artist's body of work which include annotated listings of all known artworks by an artist, or all works they have created in a particular media (i.e, prints or photographs). They are essential research tools for provenance, exhibition history, and attribution of artworks; many are comprehensive and take years to publish. Also visit the International Foundation for Art Research - Catalogues Raisonnés Database for published and in-progress catalogues raisonnés.
John Baldessari Catalogue Raisonné by Call Number: Book Stacks N6537.B17 A4 2012ISBN: 9780300174489Publication Date: 2012-06-12The highly anticipated first volume of the complete catalogue of works by John Baldessari The pioneering conceptual artist John Baldessari (b. 1931) began his career as a painter in the 1950s, but in the subsequent decades he expanded his practice in a new and groundbreaking direction by juxtaposing texts with found photography or appropriated images. These texts questioned the nature of art and the art-viewing experience, suggesting new meanings for the images they accompanied. This interaction of words and images remained a critical aspect of Baldessari's work, even as he branched into other media, such as site-specific installations, drawings, video, sculpture, prints, and multiples. The first of a projected four-volume set, this lavishly illustrated book features about 500 works and chronicles an important shift in Baldessari's thinking during these formative years. Included are such landmark works as the Cremation Project (1970), where Baldessari incinerated the "body" of work he had made between the years 1953 and 1966. The ashes of the cremated works were then baked into cookies, and the rest sealed in a book-shaped urn, which he then presented along with a plaque announcing the "life" and "death" dates. Baldessari's work and teaching have been greatly influential on a subsequent generation of artists. The book features an essay by Yve-Alain Bois considering Baldessari's ethos as a generator of his artistic practice. Also included are an interview with Christopher Knight and a detailed chronology of the artist's life and work.
IV. Sketchbooks
Sketchbooks are a book or pad with blank pages for sketching frequently used by artists for drawing or painting as a part of their creative process. Two types of sketchbooks include:observations, or the documentation of the external world, such as many such travel and nature studies and sketches recording an artist's travels; and inventions, following the artists' digressions and internal journeys as they develop compositional ideas. See the Artists' Sketchbooks guide for a list of sketchbooks held by the Art Library.
Anni Albers by Call Number: Book Stacks N6888.A48 A4 2017ISBN: 1941701744Publication Date: 2017-11-21A superb facsimile of the only known notebook of legendary artist Anni Albers, this publication offers insight into the methodology of a modern master. Beginning in 1972, Anni Albers filled her graph-paper notebook regularly until 1980. This rare and previously unpublished document of her working process contains intricate drawings for her large body of graphic work, as well as studies for her late knot drawings. The notebook follows Albers's deliberations and progression as a draftsman in their original form. It reveals the way she went about making complex patterns, exploring them piece by piece, line by line in a visually dramatic and mysteriously beautiful series of geometric arrangements. An afterword by Brenda Danilowitz, Chief Curator of The Josef and Anni Albers Foundation, contextualizes the notebook and explores the role studies played in the development of her work.
Find Art Books
The UofL Libraries Catalog is the easiest way to find books available at the UofL University Libraries. You can search directly from the Art Library's website.
You can search for books two different ways:
A keyword search will search for the author, title, subject, and other descriptors of the book or article you are searching for. You perform a keyword search every time you search in Google. The upside to a keyword search is that it is easy, and you usually get plenty of results. The downside is that often too many results appear, and the results aren't always relevant to your search.
A Subject Heading search is a specific term used to describe the main concept of a book, article, or other resource. Once you find out what the assigned subject terms are for your topic, you can better locate relevant resources by doing a "subject" search. (These are trickier than keyword searches because they are "controlled vocabulary" and predetermined when a book or article is cataloged).
You can find the subject headings for any book in the Library Catalog by clicking on "View Description" and scrolling down to see the subjects.
To make it a bit easier, when you search the Library Catalog, use the filters on the left-hand side and select "Art Library" so you can narrow down to books located in Bridwell Art Library.
The Art & Architecture e-Portal (A&AePortal) provides access to authoritative eBook resources that features important works of scholarship in the history of art, architecture, decorative arts, photography, and design from some of the world's finest publishers and museums such as Art Institute of Chicago, Princeton, and Yale University Press.
All books are full-text searchable and the site is very easy to navigate. These titles are also discoverable in the Library Catalog. Use the Art & Architecture ePortal & Interaction of Color guide to set up your account to access this database and the Interaction of Color digital edition.
MetPublications is a portal to the Metropolitan Museum of Art's publishing program which includes over 1,500 titles including books, online publications, and Bulletins and Journals from the last 50 years.
Afghanistan : Forging Civilizations along the Silk Road. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2012.
Credits
Image Credits: Screenshots of the Art Library homepage and catalog search, Art & Architecture ePortal homepage, and the MetPublications homepage.
Student Borrowing Privileges
Access your library account for renewals.
Use Cardinal Card to check out materials.
| Library | Collection | Loan Period | Max. # of items |
|---|---|---|---|
| ART | books | 60 days | none |
| ART | videos | 3 days | none |
| Library | Collection | Loan Period | Max. # of items |
|---|---|---|---|
| ART | books | 120 days | none |
| ART | videos | 7 days | none |
Call Numbers
The Library of Congress (LoC) classifies books into call numbers based upon subject. Use the following as a guide to browsing the book stacks and folios for books.
N -- Fine Arts
- N -- Visual arts
- NA -- Architecture
- NB -- Sculpture
- NC -- Drawing, Design, Illustration
- ND -- Painting
- NE -- Print media
- NK -- Decorative Arts
- NX -- Arts in general
T -- Technology
- TR -- Photography
- T 223 - 325 -- Logos, Trademarks
- TS 195 - 198.9 -- Packaging
- TT 515 - 850 -- Needlework, knitting, quilting, weaving, fiber arts
- TT 919 - 924 -- Pottery
Z -- Book Arts
- Z116 - 659 -- Book and publication design; bookbinding; calligraphy; typography