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Art & Design Research Guide

A guide to library resources on art and design
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Librarian

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Libby Wheeles
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Contact:
Thomas Jefferson Library
University of Missouri - St. Louis
(314) 516-7281

This guide offers an introduction to Art & Design resources at UMSL Libraries. Use this guide for help with:

  • Searching using Discover@UMSL, the library's main search tool for books, articles, and more
  • Locating reference texts for background information
  • Finding and navigating art & design databases
  • Finding and using images for classwork/research
  • Citations
 
Questions? 

Please contact a librarian using the online chat or by emailing/scheduling an appointment.

 
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What's New?

Decolonizing Design

Decolonizing Design first asks how modernist design has encompassed and advanced the harmful project of colonization--then shows how design might address these harms by recentering its theory and practice in global Indigenous cultures and histories. A leading figure in the movement to decolonize design, Dori Tunstall uses hard-hitting real-life examples and case studies drawn from over fifteen years of working to transform institutions to better reflect the lived experiences of Indigenous, Black, and People of Color communities.

When Eero Met His Match

A uniquely personal biographical account of Louchheim's life and work that takes readers inside the rarified world of architecture media.

Visualizing Genocide

Examines how creative arts and memory institutions selectively commemorate or often outright ignore stark histories of colonialism. The essays confront outdated narratives and institutional methods by investigating contemporary artistic and scholarly interventions documenting settler colonialisms including land theft, incarceration, intergenerational trauma, and genocide.

Groundwork

An in-depth examination of the complex relationship between figure and ground in Renaissance painting.

Cinematic Style

Considers the significant interplay between fashion and interiors and their combined contribution to cinematic style from early film to the digital age.

Art History for Comics

This book looks at comics through the lens of Art History, examining the past influence of art-historical methodologies on comics scholarship to scope how they can be applied to Comics Studies in the present and future. It unearths how early comics scholars deployed art-historical approaches, including stylistic analysis, iconography, Cultural History and the social history of art, and proposes how such methodologies, updated in light of disciplinary developments within Art History, could be usefully adopted in the study of comics today.

A Companion to Impressionism

Presenting an expansive view of the study of Impressionism, this volume breaks new thematic ground while also reconsidering established questions surrounding the definition, chronology, and membership of the Impressionist movement. In 34 original essays from established and emerging scholars, this collection considers a diverse range of developing topics and offers new critical approaches to the interpretation of Impressionist art.

Deconstructing the Myths of Islamic Art

Despite its Orientalist origins, the field of Islamic art has continued to evolve and shape our understanding of the various civilizations of Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Middle East. Situated in this field, this book addresses how universities, museums, and other educational institutions can continue to challenge stereotypical or homogeneous notions of Islam and Islamic art. It reviews subtle and overt mythologies through scholarly research, museum collections and exhibitions, classroom perspectives, and artists' initiatives.