Reservoir

Because Librarians and Archivists need to create access to knowledge/content/context, they have a surprising armory of resources at their fingertips. Some would bore you, but some are things that would make an artist much richer - for free.

NYPL Electronic Resources [the redesign of the NYPL site is my horror of the new year, but you can use this link to reach their resources available outside the building.

Within this set of over 80 databases, you will have access to Worldcat, Ulrich's Periodicals, Biography database, etc.

Getty Vocabularies

Union List of Artist Names [ULAN]

Art & Architecture Thesaurus [AAT]

There is a richer trove of references and links on my blog called Researching a Photo Project.