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Art & Art History

Gateway into art and art history resources at USD

Citing

Citing Images

Documenting sources for images can be challenging, especially with the variety of new electronic resources now available. Many different style manuals exist. Listed below are several writing style manuals that may be consulted along with examples. Always ask your class instructor for the style appropriate for the course.

The basic information you will need

  • Artist name
  • Title of the work
  • Date is was created
  • Repository, museum, or owner
  • City or Country of origin
  • Dimensions of the work
  • Material or medium such as oil on canvas, marble, found objects

If you found the image in a book you will need the author, title, publisher information, date, and page, figure or plate number of the reproduction

If you found the image online you will need an access date, the web site address (URL) and in some cases an image ID number.

MLA— Cite the artist's name, title, usually underlined, and the institution or individual who owns the work, and the city. If you want to indicate the work's date, include it after the title. For a work of art you viewed online, end your citation with your date of access and the URL.

Documenting sources for images can be challenging, especially with the variety of new electronic resources now available. Many different style manuals exist. Always ask your class instructor for the style appropriate for the course.

Examples below are based on the MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers, 7th ed

Works of art reproduced in a printed source

 

Artist’s last name, first name. Title of art work in italics. Date of art work. 
           Institution where art work is housed (if known), city where housed if 
           not already named. Title of printed source in italics. By Author of printed
           source. Place of publication: publisher, date. Page or plate/figure/slide
           number. Print.

example: 

Cassatt, Mary. Mother and Child . Wichita Art Museum. c.1890. American

Painting: 1560-1913 . By John Pearce. New York: McGraw, 1964. 
Slide 22. Print.

 

Works of art reproduced in electronic source

 

Artist’s last name, first name. Title of art work in italics.  Date of art work. 
            Institution where art work is housed (if known), city where housed if not 
            already named. Database or web site name. Web. Day month year 
            accessed.

 

example: 

Monet, Claude. Meadow with Haystacks at Giverny. 1885. Museum of Fine

Arts, Boston. ARTstor. Web. 22 October 2004.

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