Library Guides: Art (Contemporary): Biographical Info

Short Bios on an Artist or Designer – Top Pick

Oxford Art Online This link opens in a new window
Try this first. This huge electronic encyclopedia of art contains thousands of authoritative and well-documented biographies of artists, architects, and designers of all eras and cultures. Often links to illustrations.

Oxford Art Online combines several key encyclopedias and dictionaries important for the history of art and architecture. Together these provide the largest and most authoritative list of biographies of artists in English, as well as an excellent collection of scholarly encyclopedia articles on important topics in the visual arts. Included are Grove Art Online, the Benezit Dictionary of Artists, the Encyclopedia of Aesthetics, and others.

Search Engines

Of course you can often find short bios by entering an artist’s name in a search engine and these can work fine if you examine them carefully. In general, the biographies posted by major museums, art galleries, and artists themselves, are of a higher quality than those provided by the many commercial sites such as Artcyclopedia, AskArt, Artnet, etc. Accuracy varies. Web bios for historic figures are frequently copied from public domain (pre-1923) sources. Wikipedia entries also vary, so check the “Talk” tab where the quality of the article may be discussed.

Less-Known Artists

Allgemeines Künstlerlexikon Online This link opens in a new window
Use this if Oxford Art Online does not have the artist you seek. It’s the world's largest list of brief biographies of artists (in all media, including architecture and photography.) All eras and locations. Includes recommended readings. Scholarly. The short texts are in German but easily pasted into a web translator. See the "General Abbreviations” link to decode the many abbreviations.

The world's largest list of brief biographies of artists (in all media, including architecture and photography.) All eras and locations. Includes recommended readings. Scholarly. The short texts are in German but easily pasted into a web translator. See the "GeneralAbbreviations” link to decode the many abbreviations.