LibGuides: Art History: Books & Background Information

Use these online, art-specific encyclopedias to get overviews of movements, time periods, artists, methods, and more.

Oxford Art Online This link opens in a new window
NOTE: Oxford Art Online at CUNY is on pause because of a payment delay as of February 2025. Link takes you to the NYPL instance of Oxford Art Online which requires your NYPL card and login. / Joining the original Grove Art reference sources--The Dictionary of Art (1996), and The Oxford Companion to Western Art (2001)--are the Encyclopedia of Aesthetics and the Concise Oxford Dictionary of Art Terms.

Heilbrunn Timeline of the History of Art
The Metropolitan Museum of Art's Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History presents the Met’s collection through a chronological, geographical, and thematic exploration of global art history. Great for scholarly contextual information - even for works outside the Met's collection.

Search OneSearch for print and electronic books at City College or at any CUNY Library. Use the Material Type: books.

OneSearch This link opens in a new window
City College OneSearch combines in one searchable place three things: the CUNY library catalog; a massive index of articles from journals, magazines, and newspapers; and unique digital content from the library. The purpose of a discovery service is to allow patrons to search quickly and seamlessly across a vast range of local and remote content while providing relevancy-ranked results in the type of intuitive interface that information seekers have come to expect.

Watsonline
Online catalog of the libraries of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. You can search for specific library collections (periodicals and auction catalogs) as well as specific libraries within the Museum.