Skip to Main Content

Images: Online resources for public domain or rights-free images

resources for finding visual information (as opposed to text-based or language-based information) such as images and moving images.

Can I use that picture?

Series of questions that will help you determine if you can use a picture and the terms, laws and ethics around using that image. 

ARTstor Images for Academic Publishing (IAP)

Add IAP (Images for Academic Publishing) to your search in ARTstor

Public domain or rights-free images

  • Art Entering the Public Domain in 2016
  • Artsy Education - "Artsy’s mission is to make all the world’s art accessible to anyone with an Internet connection."  Powered by the Art Genome Project.
  • Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) "The DPLA is a large-scale, collaborative project across government, research institutions, museums, libraries, and archives to build a digital library platform to make America’s cultural and scientific history free and publicly available online. Artstor partnered as a content hub for DPLA and has provided access to more than 26,000 high-quality images and data records from leading museums and universities."
  • Digital Scriptorium - image database of medieval and renaissance manuscripts
  • Flickr Commons - public photography archives from major institutions
  • Flickr Creative Commons  - Many Flickr users have chosen to offer their work under a Creative Commons license, and you can browse or search through content under each type of license.
  • Getty Open Content Images database - digitized materials from the Research Institute's collection
  • Google Art Project -  images of works from museums around the world
  • Google Embed - Getty Images now allows free noncommercial embedding of 35 million of the images in its stock photography database
  • Library of Congress American Memory - open-access photograph collection
  • Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Collection - digitized documentary photographs, architecture, design, and engineering materials, and prints
  • New York Public Library's Digital Gallery - images from the NYPL's collections, including illuminated manuscripts, historical maps, vintage posters, rare prints, and photographs
  • Open F|S (Freer and Sackler Galleries images):  "complete digitized collections of the Freer and Sackler Galleries and the Freer Study Collection. With more than 40,000 works being made available for high-resolution download—expanding regularly with our new acquisitions—you can explore the Smithsonian's museums of Asian art from anywhere in the world, whenever you like. Images can be used for all non-commercial purposes, from desktop wallpapers to artistic gifts for family and friends. Send us your creations and your feedback about this beta version at openfs@si.edu!   For permission to use high-resolution images commercially, contact Rights and Reproduction.
  • Wikimedia Commons - database of freely usable images and other media to which anyone can contribute