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How Do I Find Information about an Artist? This page describes how to find information including dictionary articles, books, and periodical articles about an artist, and how to construct bibliographic citations. This guide focuses on scholarly rather than popular sources. Scholarly sources are academic works on a particular topic; they often have substantial bibliographies and footnotes or endnotes. DictionariesTo gather background information on an artist, consult the following sources.
Turner, Jane, ed. The Dictionary of Art. New York: Grove's Dictionaries, 1996. This dictionary, commonly known as the Grove Dictionary of Art or Grove, is also available online to current Rutgers students, faculty and staff members. (Rutgers students, faculty, and staff members using the online dictionary off campus must login remote access, as described in How do I connect Connect From Off-Campus?.) If the artist does not have an entry in the Grove Dictionary of Art, consult:
Bénézit, Emmanuel. Dictionnaire critique et documentaire des peintres, sculpteurs, dessinateurs et graveurs de tous les
temps et de tous les pays. Paris: Grund, 1999. This dictionary, commonly known as Bénézit, is a standard biographical dictionary of artists. The entries on each artist include a short biography, including the artist's training, names of museums where the artist's works are held, and lists of recent public sales of the artist's work. It contains many lesser-known artists, and is written in French. If you have difficulty reading French, contact the Art Librarian for assistance. Books
To find books about an artist, consult IRIS, the catalog of the Rutgers University Libraries.
IRIS allows you to perform a variety of keyword or browse searches by choosing one of the following categories: To start with a simple keyword search, at the search screen, enter the artist's name, and click "words anywhere." A relevant list of book titles will appear if the Libraries holds books treating the artist. 
If the keyword search on the artist's name produces too many records, narrow the search by typing the artist's name into the search box again and choosing "title keyword." 
If you examine the record for a particular book within IRIS, you may notice that at the bottom of the IRIS records subject headings may be listed. These subject headings are what the Library of Congress uses to categorize and catalogue the book. If you click on these subject headings, you will be lead to a list of related books that may be of interest to you. Please note that materials are held in multiple library locations throughout the Rutgers University Libraries system. The name of the library in which the item is held appears before the call number. Remember that if you are a current Rutgers student, faculty, or staff member you can request that items be delivered from one location to another by choosing the "Deliver/Recall Book" button. 
To find books about an artist held outside of the Rutgers University Libraries, search Worldcat. Worldcat is a global catalogue containing the holdings of many university and public libraries in the United States and worldwide. Worldcat can be located off the Rutgers University Libraries homepage under Other Library Catalogs. Scroll down the page and click on Worldcat. Worldcat allows you to conduct a simple search by title, author, subject, or keyword. Because of the large number of records contained within Worldcat, if you conduct keyword searches they should be narrowly constructed. In other words, putting in a search for the keyword "Cubism" will return too many results. If the Rutgers University Libraries do not own the item you need you may request an interlibrary loan. Periodical ArticlesScholarly articles constitute an important part of art and art historical research. In order to locate articles, you must use indexes. The following indexes are located off the home page of the libraries under Find Articles -> Indexes and Databases." The chief indexes for the study of art and art history include:
After opening the index, enter your keywords into the search screen. A successful search will return a list of results. The elements of an article citation are: Author last name, Author first name. "Title of Article." Title of Periodical. Volume, Issue (Year): Pages. With the exception of Art Full Text, the majority of the art historical indexes are citation based, that is, the full text of the article is not included in the index itself. In order to see if the Libraries own the periodical in question, you will have to click on the "library catalog holdings" link within the index IF THE LINK IS PRESENT OR return to IRIS to search for periodical holdings. To see if Rutgers owns a particular periodical, open IRIS, type in the periodical title and click on "Browse" and "Periodical Title begins with." Remember that Rutgers owns periodicals in both electronic and paper format. If Rutgers University Libraries do not hold the periodical in question, but you would still like to consult the item, you may place an interlibrary loan request for the item if you are a current Rutgers University student, faculty, or staff member. To fill out an interlibrary loan form. Bibliographic CitationsArt historians use the Chicago Manual of Style to construct their bibliographic entries, footnotes and endnotes. The Chicago Manual of Style can be found in the reference section of most Rutgers Libraries at the call number Ref Z253.U69 What follows is a sample bibliographic citation for book with one author and a typical journal article citation in the Chicago Manual of Style format. Book: Author Last Name, Author First Name. Title of Book. Publication Location: Publishing House, Publication Date. Journal Article: Author Last Name, Author First Name. "Title of Article." Title of Periodical Volume Number (Date): Page Numbers. The Research PathwayThere are several sources designed to help you during the research process. You might find the following helpful. Barnet, Sylvan. A Short Guide to Writing about Art. New York: Longman, 2000. Booth, Wayne C., Gregory G. Colomb, and Joseph M. Williams. The Craft of Research. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995. Sayre, Henry M. Writing about Art. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1995. Zerubavel, Eviatar. The Clockwork Muse. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1999. Research is a long-term process, and the path can sometimes be difficult. As Art Librarian, I'm here to assist you. Please feel free to contact me, Sara Harrington, via phone at (732) 932-7739, or email me at saraharr@rci.rutgers.edu, or drop by the Art Library if you would like to talk about your research. 
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