ART: Art History

The collection has a “focus on the historical and contemporary art of British Columbia and international centres, with special attention to the accomplishments of First Nations artists and the art of the Asia Pacific region"

“From its earliest acquisitions by living Canadian painters in the 1880s, the Gallery has built a world-class collection spanning all periods of Canadian art, richly representing works by Europeans—from old masters to contemporary artists—and notable for strong holdings in photography, Inuit art and contemporary American art.”

“AGO’s collection of close to 95,000 works ranges from cutting-edge contemporary art such as Untilled (Liegender Frauenakt) by Pierre Huyghe to European masterpieces such as Peter Paul Rubens’s The Massacre of The Innocents; from the vast collection by the Group of Seven to works by established and emerging Indigenous Canadian artists; with a photography collection that tracks the impact of the medium with deep holdings of works by artists such as Garry Winogrand and Diane Arbus; and with focused collections in Gothic boxwood miniatures and Western and Central African art.”

"The McMichael Canadian Art Collection stands alone as the only publicly funded fine art gallery in the nation that focuses on Canadian art and the Indigenous art of our country, both historical and contemporary. The permanent collection consists of over 6,500 artworks by Tom Thomson, the Group of Seven, their contemporaries, and First Nations, Métis, Inuit and contemporary artists who have contributed to the development of Canadian art. The McMichael is also the gallery of record for works on paper from the Inuit community of Cape Dorset, as we are the custodians for the Cape Dorset archive, totalling more than 100,000 artworks."

"Our evolving collection contains almost 200,000 works of modern and contemporary art. More than 81,000 works are currently available online..... The collection includes an ever-expanding range of visual expression, including painting, sculpture, printmaking, drawing, photography, architecture, design, film, and media and performance art.”

A national, multidisciplinary museum that shows "the great diversity of artistic creation in the western world between 1848 and 1914. It was formed with the national collections coming mainly from...the Louvre museum, for the works of artists born after 1820 or coming to the fore during the Second Republic and from the Musée du Jeu de Paume, which since 1947 had been devoted to Impressionism."

The “Whitney Museum of American Art presents the full range of twentieth-century and contemporary American art, with a special focus on works by living artists. The Whitney is dedicated to collecting, preserving, interpreting, and exhibiting American art, and its collection—arguably the finest holdings of twentieth-century American art in the world—is the Museum's key resource."

"Art21 is a celebrated global leader in presenting thought-provoking and sophisticated content about contemporary art, and the go-to place to learn first-hand from the artists of our time. A nonprofit organization, Art21's mission is to inspire a more creative world through the works and words of contemporary artists.”

The Courtauld Gallery’s collection of paintings ranges from the early Renaissance to the 20th century. Prints and Drawings include works by Michelangelo, Dürer, Leonardo da Vinci, Canaletto, van Gogh and Picasso. Sculpture and Decorative Arts include Renaissance ceramics, Islamic metalwork and Degas’ sculptures

“Featuring over 1,700 artworks by more than 625 artists, the Collection Online presents a searchable database of selected artworks from the Guggenheim’s permanent collection of more than 7,000 artworks. The selection reflects the breadth, diversity, and tenor of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation’s extensive holdings from the late 19th century through the present day. Browse by artist, date, medium, movement, and venue, or by several of the major groups of acquisitions that have entered the holdings of the foundation since its inception in 1937.”

"The most visited museum in the world, the Louvre houses more than 35,000 objects from prehistory to the 21st century."

"Enjoy more than 406,000 hi-res images of public-domain works from the collection that can be downloaded, shared, and remixed without restriction."
The MetCollects section "celebrates works of art new to the Museum's collection through the fresh eyes of photographers and the enthusiastic voices of leading scholars and artists."

“The National Gallery Collection contains over 2,300 works, including many famous works, such as van Eyck’s Arnolfini Portrait, Velázquez’s Rokeby Venus, Turner’s Fighting Temeraire and Van Gogh’s Sunflowers. All major traditions of Western European painting are represented from the artists of late medieval and Renaissance Italy to the French Impressionists.”

"The national collection of British art from 1500 to today, and international modern and contemporary art"

A collection focussed on ancient Egyptian, Greek, Etruscan and Roman art, the frescoes of painters Michelangelo and Raphael, and early decorative arts. The “Discover the Museums” page is the best entry point to explore the collection, as the online catalogue is only available in Italian.