Abstraction, Decoration and Design

Professor Christine Mehring
Nancy Spiegel, Art Librarian

Online Reference Sources

• Grove Art Online A standard, continuously updated reference source, searchable by themes as well as by artists' names. The bibliographies are current and a worthwhile starting point for further research.
  
  
• Grove Encyclopedia of Decorative Arts, 2006.
• Thames & Hudson Dictionary of Fashion and Fashion Designers, 1998
  
• Thames & Hudson Dictionary of Graphic Design and Designers, 1993
  
• Thames & Hudson Dictionary of 20th Century Architecture, 1996
  
• Thames & Hudson Dictionary of 20th Century Design and Designers, 1993
  
  
• The Dictionary of Art Historians: A handy index of biographical and methodological information about historians of western art history.
  
  
• Johns Hopkins Guide to Literary Theory and Criticism: One of the standard reference works in the field, this guide offers articles on theorists such as Walter Benjamin and Michel Foucault. Entries on Film Theory, Cultural Studies and Art Theory provide useful overviews.
  
  
• See also the library's guide to finding reference books and our growing collection of online art dictionaries and encyclopedias.
  

The Library Catalog and LENS
Review of advanced search techniques, LC subject headings, finding journals, etc.

Worldcat, the multi-library catalog--know what else is out there!

Search millions of book, journal, film, and archival records from libraries all over the world at once with WorldCat. Most major museum library collections (Getty, MOMA, National Gallery, etc.) came be found in Worldcat. Use the Find it! button to request a title you need through Interlibrary Loan.

See also our guides to other multi-library catalogs and to dissertation catalogs.

Finding articles in the art literature

• Art Index Retrospective (1929-1984) and Art Abstracts (1984-present): A core resource for art research, indexing over 300 key journals.
  
  
• ArtBibliographies Modern (1974 -present). Best place to start for 20th-and 21st-century artists and movements; performance and multi-media art; and emerging trends in contemporary art.
  
  
• Avery Index to Architectural Periodicals: Index to articles on architecture, interior design, city planning, and individual architects. Excludes periodicals in non-Western alphabets. Coverage is from 1934 to the present, with selective records dating to the 1860s.
  
  
• Bibliography of the History of Art (1973-present). The largest of the indexes, BHA emphasizes post-classical art and covers a significant number of European journals. A list of journals indexed is available here.
  
  
• DAR: Design Abstracts Retrospective,1903-1986 with some sources back to 1894. This file indexes the design and craft literature back to the beginning of the twentieth century.
  
  
• Design and Applied Arts Index: 1973-present. International index to articles in contemporary design and craft journals and newspapers. Includes conference reports, and book, video and exhibition reviews.
  
  
• Periodicals Index Online: An excellent resource for interviews, reviews and older articles.

 

Multidisciplinary electronic resources of interest to art historians
For more databases, go to the Database Finder page, select the "subject browse" tab, and then a subject area from the list.

• America: History and Life (1954-present). Articles and book reviews in North American history. A core resource for the history literature.
  
• AnthropologyPlus (late 19th century to present) Core resource indexing the anthropological literature.
  
• Academic Search Premier Articles in the social sciences, humanities, and arts. Nice mixture of scholarly journals and general- interest publications such as the New Yorker, Ms., and New Republic. Coverage varies considerably, title by title.
• Avery Index to Architectural Periodicals (1934-present). Includes architecture as well as interior design, city planning, archaeology and individual architects.
• British Humanities Index (1962-present). Indexes humanities journals and weekly magazines published primarily in Great Britain.
• Historical Abstracts (1967-present) Articles and book reviews in European history.
  
• IBZ Internationale Bibliographie der Zeitschriftenliteratur, (1983-present). Indexes English-language and European periodicals, books, and dissertations.
  
• JSTOR Back issues of scholarly journals in all disciplines, with a moving wall of about five years. View included art titles here.
  
• MLA Bibliography (1926-present). Core resource for articles on literature, theory and literary criticism. This list describes all of the indexed journal titles. For coverage from 1921 to 1925, consult the print volumes (call # Z7006.M67 bookstacks).
  
• Project Muse Full-text collection of recent (usually last five years), scholarly journals in all disciplines.

Archives of American Art /Smithsonian Institution Library Catalogs The Archives of American Art holds artists' papers; the records of galleries, museums, and art organizations; and videos and interviews from the Archives’oral history project. Most of these collections are available to the University of Chicago community on microfilm though interlibrary loan.

Newspapers from the early 20th century (a sampling):

• Chicago Tribune, 1872-1963
• Los Angeles Times, 1886-1986
  
• New York Times, 1851-2004
• Times of London (index) 1906-1980
• Center for Research Libraries Repository for many European newspapers on microfilm, foreign dissertations, etc., and located in Hyde Park.
  

Recent Online Newspapers (a sampling)

• Boston Globe, 1987-
• Chicago Tribune, 1963-1985
• Chicago Tribune,1985-
• Guardian, 1996-
• Independent, 1993- Los Angeles Times, 1996-
• New York Times,1995-
• New York Times Magazine, 1997-
• Times of London, 1992-
• Lexis Nexis Academic Provides access to selected national, regional and international newspapers. Coverage varys considerably, title by title, but most newspapers are available from the 1980s or 1990s onward.

Other resources

• International Dada Archive features a set of digital primary sources compiled by the University of Iowa Library. Periodicals include De Stijl, Merz, and Dada; important books, pamphlets and emphemera are also digitized.
  
• Refworks software for managing citations and generating bibliographies
  
  Research tips
  
  
• Use the Find it! button to link from the article citation to the full text.
  
• Search the library catalogs for a topic using keywords; click on the title of a relevant item to find official subject headings; then search the catalogs for this term using a subject keyword search.
  
• Use our interlibrary loan service to get articles and books that we don't own. **Remember, articles can take as few as three days; books typically take 7 to 10 days, but can take much longer, depending on the time of year, and where the book is held.
• I am always available to answer your questions:

  Nancy Spiegel -- nspiegel@uchicago JRL 463, 702-5193