(This is my third post in a series of entries I’m using to participate in Blaugust for 2026.)
The very first post I ever made on this blog was about the Artchive, a still-running site where you can find countless fine art images by famous artists. When I made that I was halfway through my first year as an elementary art teacher (after 4 years of teaching high school) and in the process of getting my graduate degree.
That post – this whole website, actually – was part of that degree, as we had to make web pages for one of my courses. Most went with static pages but not me, I had to be fancy!
The Artchive is still awesome, but Open Culture has found yet another resource to add to my tool belt: The Last Museum.
You should read the write-up Open Culture has, it’s not long and I don’t want to just rehash what someone else said. Instead, let’s talk about usage.
My students like making digital things, but those interests aren’t distributed evenly. If they have a video that needs some visuals, their first inclination is to head to Google and steal something. My job, in part, is to fix that so they don’t end up on the news for the wrong reasons.
Now I’ve shared a variety of sites with them to help out with that, but more is better, and The Last Museum is effectively a search engine for art.
One of my favorite features about it is that you can select a specific range of years. Because copyright law is a hot mess in most places (it’s great to protect artists’ rights, it’s unfortunate that companies abuse it constantly), I’m more likely to find public domain art I can use if I move the higher end of that slider down to, say, 1930.
(It’s still worth checking each work, of course, as exceptions sometimes exist depending on each country’s laws.)
And the variety! There’s maps, woodcuts, paintings, prints, lots of architecture, and all kinds of cool things in there.
This isn’t going to replace the other sources I use, but it’s certainly going to supplement them.
I’m finding this resource really useful, thanks for sharing it! I already have a few things saved to use in blog posts
I had no idea that Artchive or Open Culture existed, even aside from The Last Museum! Thank you for sharing (and sending me and likely my partner down some lovely future rabbit holes).
Long live Blaugust and finding cool new stuff!
You’re quite welcome!
Fun fact: I’d been using the Artchive for years before I ended up taking an online class for my Masters where the professor was the person behind the Artchive! This was 20+ years ago so I’ve no idea if he’s still the driving force, but at the time I marveled at how small the world seems to be sometimes.