Artist and gallery websites often link to exhibition reviews or books & catalogs that review their work, which can be a good source of information.
If you're having trouble finding writings about your artist in Mason libraries, there are other strategies to help you see what has been written about your artist or artwork.
If your artwork is at the National Gallery of Art:
If your artwork is at the Hirshhorn or another Smithsonian Library:
Encyclopedias and other reference sources are excellent starting points to get background information on a topic.
Important note: Reference sources usually provide general information and usually should not be your main source for research. They can provide critical details artists and movements, but do not present scholarly perspectives or original arguments about those details.
Scholarly art encyclopedia. Includes over 200,000 reference articles on every aspect of the visual arts from prehistory to the present, with selected images, written by over 6,800 scholars. Serves as the access point for Grove Art Online, the Benezit Dictionary of Artists, and other Oxford art reference resources.
In addition to writings by or about an individual artist, look for the original essays or manifestos that described ideas and theories around a time, place, or movement.
Below are some examples from Mason Libraries, but this is not a complete list! Search in the Libraries catalog with keywords like a place and movement name to find books specific to your artist's context.
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