The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ Margaret Herrick Library today launched its latest online research tool, the Production Art Database. The database contains records for more than 5,300 items from the library’s collection, including motion picture costume and production design drawings, animation art, storyboards and paintings. Nearly half of the records include images, making this an invaluable online resource for researchers interested in motion picture design.
posted by Trurl on Jul 2, 2011 - 7 comments

Why don't rabbits burrow rectangular burrows? Why didn't early man make rectagular caves?

Archigram are amongst the most seminal, iconoclastic and influential architectural groups of the modern age. They created some of the 20th century's most iconic images and projects, rethought the relationship of technology, society and architecture, predicted and envisioned the information revolution decades before it came to pass, and reinvented a whole mode of architectural education – and therefore produced a seam of architectural thought with truly global impact.

The Archigram Archival Project is an online, searchable database of all the available works of Archigram [and much, much more] for study by architectural specialists and the general public. [more inside]
posted by carsonb on Apr 26, 2010 - 24 comments

The Digital Library of Slovenia has (among other things) music [like this] [previously], posters [like this] and photographs [like this].
posted by tellurian on Apr 14, 2009 - 12 comments

The Grand Comics Database is aiming to become the IMDB of comic books cover art. I only tested a couple from memory, but they seem to have a pretty deep reservoir of content, and fairly large scans of the results. Searchable by series title, character appearance, writer, illustrator and a number of other criteria.
posted by jonson on Oct 19, 2006 - 21 comments

The Art Millenium "The Encyclopedia was founded in May 1999. It contains more than 15,000 pictures and overviews of about 1000 artists. Total size is 2.5 Gigabytes" I was there in their Collections looking at Graphics (Dore, Beardsley, Cranach, Durer, Giger), specifically all of Max Ernst's Une Semaine de Bonte. I have not begun to scratch the surface.
posted by vacapinta on Apr 20, 2004 - 4 comments

Welcome to ArtServe: Art & Architecture mainly from the Mediterranean Basin and Japan.
posted by hama7 on Nov 29, 2003 - 7 comments

The On-Line Picasso Project offers 6,893 works for your ogling pleasure, plus an obsessively documented chronological bio. I'm stunned. (please read the user's manual, inside.)
posted by taz on Oct 2, 2003 - 12 comments

"Bastarda"! What is it? Well, silly, it's a style of Gothic script, of course, used chiefly in the 14th and 15th centuries and so-called because it combines characteristics of the Gothic cursive style with the more formal "textura". Why do I know this? Because I've been surfing the mighty-wonderful Getty Art & Architecture Thesaurus. More...
posted by taz on Feb 11, 2003 - 9 comments

"Twexus does contain 15800 images today". Twexus is an enigmatic, engaging little database-driven photoart site that rewards you with new site features as your page views increase. I can't seem to tear free from the hypnotic effect of the "symmetry" page that concerns itself with my opinion on each proffered image. sorry, gotta go... must... return... to... twexus...
posted by taz on Nov 21, 2002 - 15 comments

The AIDS Memorial Quilt has an official website. Its quilt image database is browsable and searchable by name, and includes images of over 42,960 individual panels, each in honor of a lost loved one.

It's an utterly amazing testament to those claimed by the disease, and to those who have survived them.
posted by mattpfeff on Dec 1, 2001 - 2 comments