Why You Should Take Advantage of NYC’s Art Libraries
The art books, catalogues, and artist archives in New York City’s art libraries are not just for art historians and scholars. They are exciting places for anyone to investigate their favorite artists, exhibitions, and periods of art history. These libraries’ comprehensive collections provide nuanced insights that cannot be found online, demonstrating the value these institutions still hold. Taking the time to explore these libraries keeps their archives alive and their valuable knowledge circulating in today’s conversations. Below are five NYC art libraries worth perusing:
Photo: Laurie Lambrecht
The Museum of Modern Art Library is a wide-ranging collection devoted to modern and contemporary art. The library holds approximately 400,000 books and exhibition catalogs, over 1,000 periodical titles, and over 90,000 files of ephemera about individual artists and groups. This noncirculating collection documents painting, sculpture, drawings, prints, photography, architecture, design, performance, video, film, and emerging art forms from 1880 to the present (from 1830 for photography). MoMA’s Library Catalog includes records of all their material, including books, periodical titles, exhibition catalogues, pamphlet files, artists’ books, special collections materials, and electronic resources. It is simple and accessible to create a MoMA Library account and request materials through library.moma.org. After doing this, an appointment can be booked to view your requests.
Thomas J. Watson Library is The Met's research library and one of the world's most comprehensive art libraries—with its collection holding more than one million volumes, extensive digital materials, and online resources. Watson Library holds books ranging from the late fifteenth century to current scholarship. Some specific collections the library holds are rare books, auction and sale catalogues, artists’ publications, and manuscript items. The library’s reference collection includes a broad range of resources and relevant material about art history, mythology, religion, biography, and travel, many other subjects. Watson Library is available for visiting researchers wishing to do art historical or related research who are college-level and older. Appointments are not required.
The Frick Art Research Library gives public access to materials and programs focused on the study of fine and decorative arts created in the European tradition from the fourth through the twentieth century. It also has materials on art from around the world that have been influenced by or had an influence on this tradition. One of the first institutions of its kind in the country, The Photoarchive at The Frick is a study collection of over 1.2 million photographic reproductions of works accompanied by significant documentation about the attribution, ownership, and condition of the works. The Photoarchive’s extensive provenance information can also help you trace a work’s history. Other archives The Frick holds include art collectors and collecting, artists’ sketchbooks and diaries, manuscript collections, and gallery records. Registering as a researcher is free and open to anyone. Items must be requested in advance before scheduling an appointment at the reading room.
Installation view: 46: Artists' Books from Franklin Furnace, 1976-2022, 2022, Pratt Institute Library.
The Franklin Furnace Artists’ Books Collection is housed on the campus of Pratt Institute in Brooklyn. Outside of the faculty and students of Pratt, this library is made available to artists, curators, and the general public by appointment only. Franklin Furnace actively collects, preserves, and presents art in form of books published internationally since 1976. The collection reflects contemporary artists’ experimentation with the book form as a medium and their exploration of the role of books in our culture and the digital age. Some interesting archives Franklin Furnace holds are The Flue Volumes, which includes editors and designers such as Barbara Kruger and Linda Montano, as well as features art and writings by Nam June Paik, Anna Banana, Ulises Carrión, Louise Lawler, and Anna Mendieta. Franklin Furnace has also made the sketchbooks of Ree Morton an online resource, which shows the foundations of many of her groundbreaking and influential works. A pre-exhibition for the 50th Anniversary of Franklin Furnace that focuses on the avant-garde and time-based art forms they contributed to in Japan will be on view from July 4 to July 19, 2025.
The Drawing Institute is a center of research based at the Morgan Library & Museum, which highlights the role of drawing in the history of art. The Drawing Institute is devoted to the study of drawings from all periods and explores their centrality in the process of creative expression. The Morgan's collection of drawings, sketchbooks, albums primarily focus on European drawings executed before 1825, but the Morgan's holdings include a growing number of nineteenth- and twentieth century works on paper, as well as drawings by American artists. Drawings and sketchbooks include works from renowned artists such as Michelangelo, Edgar Degas, Henri Matisse, Peter Paul Rubens, Caspar David Friedrich, and J. M. W. Turner. To make an appointment at the Drawing Study Center complete the required reading room application.
