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 LOCATING BOOKS ON ARTISTS  
ORBIS
The Yale University Library has 10+ million volumes available in 22 different libraries on campus, including the Art and Architecture Library. Orbis is the central catalog and searches every Yale library EXCEPT for the Law Library, which has its own catalog, Morris.

Sample Orbis Searches
To find books on a specific artist, search the artist's name as either an AUTHOR or SUBJECT. The artist is often listed as the "author" for exhibition or collection catalogs.

Author (sorted by name) search: pollock jackson (~37 entries)

Subject search: pollock jackson
Subject index has 13 headings for Jackson Pollock (~76 entries total)

Keyword search: "jackson pollock" (71 entries with the phrase "Jackson Pollock")

Keyword search: jackson pollock (no quotation marks - ~96 entries)

Notice that the results screen from the subject search has subdivisions like "Exhibitions," "Criticism and Interpretation," and "Themes, Motives." These subdivisions can help you narrow down your search.

Catalogues raisonnés
A catalogue raisonné is a comprehensive listing of an artist's entire work, or work in a particular medium, and generally includes the date, history, provenance, location, and other critical information about each work. With German art history texts or when searching German library catalogs, try using "werkverzeichnis" as a search term in lieu of catalogue raisonné.

Author: Rewald, John, 1912-
Title: The paintings of Paul Cézanne : a catalogue raisonné / John Rewald in collaboration with Walter Feilchenfeldt and Jayne Warman.
Published: New York : H.N. Abrams, 1996.
Description: 2 v. : ill. (some col.) ; 30 cm.
Location: ART AND ARCHITECTURE, Locked Case 1 (Non-Circulating)
Call Number: NJ18 C34 R49 FLP 4170 1996 (LC)+
Oversize
Status: Not Checked Out
Library has: v.1-v.2
Subjects (Library of Congress): Cézanne, Paul, 1839-1906 --Catalogues raisonnés. <-- identified as a catalogue raisonné


HELPFUL SECTIONS IN THE A&A LIBRARY

NJ18

Books in the NJ18 sections of the stacks are on individual artists. They are filed in alphabetical order by artist's last name. For example, books about Charles Rennie Mackintosh are at NJ18 M144, and books about Monet are at NJ18 M77.

Keep in mind that there is an NJ18 regular size section and an NJ18 oversize, in the LC class. Old Yale class books use J18 instead.

Reference, Biography

The reference & biography section is a great place to find information about artists. It is located in at the right hand end of the reference collection. The N call numbers begin with general works, and then are subdivided by subject and geographic area. Sample titles are listed below.

N The Arts

Benezit's Dictionnaire critique et documentaire des peintres, sculpteurs, dessinateurs et graveurs de tous les temps et de tous les pays par un groupe d'ecrivains specialistes francais et etrangers.
N40 B44 1999 (LC)

Contemporary Artists - N6490 +C6567 1996 (LC)

Who's who in American Art - N6536 +W35 (LC)

Dictionary of Artists in Britain - N6768 B843 1998 (LC)

Dictionary of Women Artists - N8354 D53X 1997 (LC)
NA Architecture
Contemporary Architects - NA40 +C65 1994 (LC)
NB Sculpture
Dictionary of American Sculptors - NB236 +O64 1984 (LC)
NC Graphic Art
Who's who in Graphic Art - NC45 +W46 (LC)
ND Painting
Cyclopedia of Painters - ND30 +C43 (LC)

Dictionnaire des Peintres Belges - ND664 +D538 1995 (LC)

You can also find titles as specific as:
Dictionary of British Watercolour Artists up to 1920 - ND1928 M27 (LC)
NK Design
Contemporary Designers - NK1166 C66 1996 (LC)
TR Photography

Encyclopedie internationale des photographes - TR139 A94 1985 (LC)

Contemporary Photographers - TR139 +C66 1995 (LC)

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Beyond Yale
If you find you need books that Yale doesn't have, try consulting Eureka and/or WorldCat. They are catalogs that contain the holdings of many libraries. Once you find something you like that we don't own, you may request it through interlibrary loan off the Yale University Library's place requests page.

Eureka has over 22 million entries, mainly from research institutions.

WorldCat has over 39 million entries, from all types of libraries.

        
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