Art History & Visual Art

Here is a small selection of recently acquired titles for art. 

Click on an image to be redirected to the item record in the UBC Library Catalogue.

Ceramics: An Atlas           Kapwani Kiwanga:                    Picturing the Artist's Studio:   James Baldwin: Voices   Jack Bush:
of Forms                           The Length of the Horizon        Delacroix to Picasso              of Queer Resistance       Catalogue Raisonné
                                                                                                       

The Fluxus Newspaper,      Jeff Wall: 11 Rooms               Vancouver Special, 2023     Henry Tsang:              Who was who was who in
1964-1979                                                                                                                      In Plain Sight              Canadian contemporary art    

Reckoning: Protest.             Leaning out of Windows:         Photography in             Resist! The Art                 Gordon Parks: Born
Defiance. Resilience.           Art & Physics Collaboration     Canada, 1839-1989     of Resistance                   Black, a personal report

Visual Culture of              Alanis Obomsawin:               Still Life:                                  Matthew Wong,                    Design Against Design:
Post-Industrial Europe     Lifework                                Timeless Beauty                     Vincent van Gogh                Cause and Consequence

Search Summon and the Library Catalogue to find print and e-books. 

Books in the call number ranges listed below are located on Levels 3 & 4 of the Music, Art & Architecture Library.

Additional call numbers to consider: 

• E-F - History of the Americas.
  • Materials related to Indigenous art can be found within this call number
• GN - Anthropology.
  • Additional materials related to Indigenous art can be found here. 
• GV - Recreation, Leisure.
  • Materials related to dance and performance.
• LC - Special aspects of education.
  • Materials related to art and social justice, and/or activism.
• QA - Mathematics.
  • Materials related digital art and new media art. 
• SB - Plant Culture.
  • Materials related to ecological art and installation art.

Note: some topics are interdisciplinary and may not limited to the call numbers above. 

For more information on how these call numbers are organized, see: 

• Library of Congress Classification Outline

New Art Books

To browse new art books recently acquired by the Music, Art & Architecture Library, see: New Books & Materials. Search by using: 

(1) the "Restrict to subject" option and selecting "Fine Arts" in the drop down menu.

(2) the "Call number range(s)" option and identifying a specific call number to search (eg., AM, N-NX, ND249, TR).

(3) "More Options" and selecting "Music, Art & Architecture Library." Note: this retrieves new books from all three disciplines.

Listed below is a small selection of art subject headings that can be used for keyword searching in the UBC Library Catalogue.

Subject headings can be further broken down by time period/style, artist/group name, place, etc. as shown below.

Click on the links above or browse the UBC Catalogue for other subject headings. A visual example of how to get started is shown below.

Expanding your Search

To find more keywords / search terms, try using the following links to get more suggestions. Type a keyword into the search box and see what alternate or related terms they return to you. Then, try searching these new terms in Summon or the UBC Library Catalogue.

• Getty Art & Architecture Thesaurus
• Library of Congress Subject Headings

For a detailed description of what constitutes a primary source, and how to search for primary source materials in UBC Library collections, see the Primary Sources guide.

This is just a small selection of art dictionaries and encyclopedias in UBC Library holdings:

If UBC Library doesn't have the book you need, try ordering it through our Interlibrary Loan Service.

Visiting another university library?  Reciprocal Borrowing agreements may allow you to sign out books at that library.

These databases will expand your search beyond UBC Library: