LibGuides@Southampton: Art & Design: Images, films and primary sources

Subculture Archives

Subculture Archives This link opens in a new window
Subculture archives is educational & cultural research resource of primary sources exploring 100 years of youth culture through the scenes, styles, and sounds that forged them. From Rave, Punk, Rockabilly to Grime.
Subculture archives is formed from the collectons of the Museum of Youth Culture - an emerging museum dedicated to the styles, sounds and social movements innovated by young people over the last 100 years. Championing the impact of youth on modern society, the Museum of Youth Culture is a non-profit Heritage Lottery & Arts Council Funded collection incorporating photographs, ephemera, objects and oral histories celebrating our shared youth culture history. From the bomb-site Bicycle racers in post-war 1940s London, to the Acid House ravers of 1980s Northern England, the Museum of Youth Culture empowers the extraordinary everyday stories of growing up in Britain.

Finding free stock images online

This guide by Red Stag Fulfillment explains Creative Commons and Public Domain licenses, and offers advice on where to find free stock photos online.

Online image databases

Berg Fashion Library Colour Image bank This link opens in a new window
Online library of over 7000 images taken from a number of collections including those held in the MoMu Fashion Museum, Belgium and the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute collection.
Images can be reproduced for educational purposes only.
Bridgeman Art Library This link opens in a new window
One of the world's leading sources of art images, representing museums, galleries and artists throughout the world by providing a central source of fine art for images users.
All images provided by the Bridgeman Art Library are copyrighted. A licence must be obtained from Bridgeman before any reproduction is made.
British Cartoon Archive This link opens in a new window
The website of the Centre for the Study of Cartoons and Caricature at the University of Kent, Canterbury. One of the worlds largest electronic archive of cartoons, the BCA holds a catalogued database of over 200,000 images.
Images held on the BCA catalogue can only be reproduced if you have permission from the copyright holder.
British Library : Images Online This link opens in a new window
Provides access to thousands of images taken from the British Library's collections which include manuscripts, rare books, musical texts and maps spanning almost 3000 years. The range of images available include illustrations, drawings, paintings and photographs.
Images from this website cannot be reproduced without permission from the British Library.
Crafts Council Photostore Online This link opens in a new window
The Craft Council's applied art research and commissioning tool, profiling over 1,000 selected designer-makers and featuring 50,000 images of their work.
None of the images on this site may be reproduced without written permission from the Crafts Council.
English Heritage Viewfinder This link opens in a new window
An online image resource for England's history, Viewfinder's gallery contains illustrations of the industrial age, social history, architecture and archaeology, dating from the 1850s to the present day.
Material downloaded from the Viewfinder can be used for personal, non-commercial use only.

Artstor This link opens in a new window
Artstor contains approximately 300 collections, composed of over 2.5 million images. Users can examine wide-ranging material such as Native American art from the Smithsonian, Magnum photography, treasures from the Louvre, and panoramic, 360-degree views of the Hagia Sophia in a single, easy-to-use resource. You will need to select the University of Southampton as your institution when first using.
Knitting Reference Library This link opens in a new window
Here you'll find digital reproductions of some of the items held in the Knitting Reference Library. This Includes a collection of Victorian knitting manuals and Sirdar menswear patterns from the 1960 to the 1980s.
National Gallery Collections This link opens in a new window
Images from the National Gallery's collection of Western European painting spanning 1260 to 1900.
National Portrait Gallery Collections This link opens in a new window
Search the Picture Library at the National Portrait Gallery.
Oxford Art Online This link opens in a new window
Online art encyclopaedia, including the Grove Art Online, which provides extensive coverage of all aspects of art & design and includes an online image gallery. Please note, this does not include access to Benezit Dictionary of Artists.
PYMCA This link opens in a new window
PYMCA (Photographic Youth Music & Culture Archive) is a unique on-line Social History and Youth Culture Website offering image licensing, on-line learning and research. The PYMCA Photo Library contains over 100,000 images of Social History and Youth Culture, spanning more than 150 years.
Individual registration is required.
Science & Society Picture Library This link opens in a new window
Represents the image collections of the Science Museum, Media Museum and Railway Museum.
Smithsonian Institution This link opens in a new window
Provides access to images of objects held in the Smithsonian's collection.
Tate : Art & Artists This link opens in a new window
Images from the Tate Gallery's collections of British art and International modern and contemporary art.
Textile Museum of Canada This link opens in a new window
The Textile Museum of Canada holds a collection of more than 12,000 objects – cloth made primarily by people for their own use, as well as related artifacts. The permanent collection represents nearly 2,000 years of history and cultural traditions from over 200 countries and regions around the world. The TMC Collection Online presents an ever expanding database of images and descriptions relating to thousands of works in the permanent collection.
V&A Museum Collections This link opens in a new window
Contains over 300,000 images of objects held in the V&A's collections including ceramics, fashion, furniture, glass, metalwork, paintings, photographs, prints, sculpture, and textiles.
All images are available to copy or print for personal use and educational purposes.
Visual Arts Data Service (VADS) This link opens in a new window
100,000 images of objects and materials held in art & design collections across the UK. These images are freely available and copyright cleared for use in teaching and research.
Yale Centre for British Art This link opens in a new window
The Yale Center for British Art holds the largest and most comprehensive collection of British art outside the United Kingdom, presenting the development of British art and culture from the Elizabethan period to the present day. This website allows you to view digital reproductions of over 100,000 items from this collection.
No permission is needed to reproduce any of the images available through this online collections.

Artists' films

British Artists' Film and Video Study Collection

British Artists' Film & Video Study Collection is a unique research collection dedicated to the work of UK and international moving image artists. Founded in 2000 by David Curtis, it comprises of copies of film and video works, publications, paper documents, posters as well as other material relating to artists’ moving image such as exhibitions, events, and institutions.

Film and Video Umbrella

FVU commissions, curates and produces artists’ moving-image works, and presents them in collaboration with galleries and other cultural partners across the UK.

Flicker

A portal site for information on international artists' film and video. Search artists' from an alphabetical list or by using image galleries.

Luxonline

Luxonline is a publicly available resource devoted to British film and video artists. Stream video clips, and access new writings, past articles and biographies which provide a comprehensive contextual background to the artists featured on the site.

Browse Luxonline’s unique content by artist, work title, or by exploring themes such as abstraction and installation. The site also features a historical timeline of key events in artists’ film and video from 1900- present day, and virtual tours created by leading curators and writers.

Box of Broadcasts - over 1 million programmes available online

Box of Broadcasts is an online off-air TV and radio recording service which enables you to choose and record any broadcast programme from 60+ Freeview channels. All programmes are then kept indefinitely and added to a growing media archive (currently at over 1 million programmes), with all content shared by users across other UK universities. You can create clips to use in presentations and compile playlists of your favourite programmes to share with others.

See FAQs for more information.

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Finding Films Online

Ads of the World This link opens in a new window
An advertising archive and community. The Archive section showcases campaigns from around the world categorised and updated daily.
BFI Player This link opens in a new window
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Provides access to over 2,000 non-fiction film and television titles from the 20th century to the early 21st. Videos include films, newsreels, TV documentaries, interviews, party political broadcasts and parliamentary debates which are provided alongside expert essays, commentary and other supporting documents.
New users will need to create an account before first logging in.
If you have a previous BFI account, please go here and select "Already have an account? Sign in" at the bottom of the page.
British Pathé This link opens in a new window
Website featuring the output of one of the oldest media companies in the world. Spanning the years from 1896-1978, its collections include footage from around the globe of major events, famous faces, fashion trends, travel, science, and culture. Users can preview items from the entire 3500 hour archive.
Kanopy This link opens in a new window
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Kanopy is an on-demand streaming video platform for public libraries and universities that offers films and documentaries.The service includes features such as captions, transcripts, clip creation, and playlist creation that allow users to share videos.

Please note: You will need to create a personal account to access Kanopy through either the mobile or TV apps. Creating an account on Kanopy will also allow you to save videos to your Watchlist to view later, create clips and playlists.

For more help creating an account, click here
Screenonline This link opens in a new window
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An online encyclopaedia of British film and television featuring hundreds of hours of film and television clips from the vast collections of the British Film Institute National Archive, and several hours of recorded interviews with film and TV personalities. These clips are supplemented by contextual material from expert writers and thousands of stills, posters and press books.
**Please note that video clips are currently unavailable (March 2020)**
Moving image content viewable on-campus only.
SHOWstudio - the home of fashion film This link opens in a new window
Website which offers a unique platform to nurture and encourage fashion to engage with moving image in the digital age
The Space This link opens in a new window
A new free, experimental digital arts service developed by Arts Council England in partnership with the BBC which features film footage which spans the arts. Includes work by Jeremy Deller, Bill Viola and Nam June Paik.