InfoGuides: Art History: Find Books & Exhibition Catalogs

Scholarly books and exhibition catalogs are the primary form of scholarship and writing in art history.

How to find books & catalogs

Find Scholarly/Academic Books
Find Art & Exhibition Catalogs

Scholarly and academic books (sometimes called monographs) are books on a single subject, written by scholars (professors or other academics), and usually published by university presses. These are one of your best resources for research in art history.

Mason Libraries Search
Start here! Search for books, articles, films, music, and more at Mason Libraries.
SEARCH TIP: change your search from "Mason Articles + More" to "WRLC Catalogs" in order to search for & borrow books from libraries beyond Mason.

WorldCat Discovery
Are you looking for even more resources not in Mason Libraries or WRLC? Search in Worldcat Discovery to identify books on a topic (available at other libraries), then use interlibrary loan to request those books.
HathiTrust
HathiTrust provides access to millions of historic and public domain materials, scanned from the collections of research libraries. This is an excellent source for finding copies of pre-20th century books and journals.
Historical Abstracts
- This link opens in a new window
Are you trying to identify what's been written on your topic in scholarly sources? Use this database to help find scholarly books, articles, and more, from 1955 through present, covering world history topics from 1450.

Art catalogs are another major source for research in the arts. These differ from academic/scholarly books in that they usually focus on a single exhibition or documentation of an artists' work, rather than providing extensive analysis or historic research.

Exhibition catalogs document specific exhibitions or traveling exhibitions. These often include images and essays from curators or scholars, and can help you to understand in what context artworks have been shown.
A catalogue raisonné is a comprehensive documentation of the known works of an artist, and might be organized by medium (like drawing or printmaking), subject, or time period. These can be useful for exploring the breadth of an artists' work, exhibition histories, provenance (previous owners), and more.

To search for art catalogs at Mason and beyond, use the library's Advanced Search:

Select "WRLC Catalogs (includes Mason)" at the top (this limits the results to only books/ebooks in the library)
Change "Any Field" to "Subject", and enter your artist's name, and the kind of catalog you want to find:
- Example: ai weiwei "exhibition catalog"
- Example: artemisia gentileschi "catalogue raisonne"

Screenshot of Mason Libraries catalog search, example of search for "judy chicago" and "catalogs"

Browse the shelves for art books

Do you prefer to browse the library's shelves to discover books? Find books in Mason Libraries by their call number, organized roughly in these categories. Look for the call number ranges starting with these letters:

I'm interested in...	BROWSE in the library:
Museums and museum studies	AM 111 - AM160: Museology, museum methods
Art history, general fine arts, themes & topics	N N8510 - N8553: Art studios, materials, etc.
Architecture	NA NA190 - NA1555: History NA4590 - NA5621: Religious architecture
Sculpture	NB
Drawing, graphic design, illustration	NC: Drawing, animation, graphic design, illustration, cartooning Z 116-659: Book design & printing
Painting	ND: Painters and the history of painting
Printmaking	NE: Printmaking & engraving Z116 - Z265: Printing technologies
Photography	TR 1 - TR 1050
Graphic Novels & Comic Books	PN 6700 - PN 6790