Free Clip Art and Image Digest
Tired of searching around the web for quick clip art or public domain images and photos? Educators will find this page has the most comprehensive list of free clip art, public domain images & photos links on the internet!
1 Art [Archive] - With many images of oil paintings for private use.
#1 Free Clipart - They claim to have over 10,000 free images.
1Photos.com [Archive] - All of his photos are free for corporate and personal use.
4freephotos.com - High quality stock and public domain images free of charge.
A Clip Art History [Archive] - Free public-domain high quality clipart for all history related projects.
Alegri Photos - Free stock photos under Creative Commons license.
All Free Images - Lots of photos that you can arrange by size, date, and name.
Archnet - Find images, including historical monuments and religious buildings, from Qatar to Libya to Australia. Most are Islamic images.
Artchive - Scanned art images by Mark Harden. Most the famous art here is in the public domain.
Art Images for College Teaching: Ancient, Medieval, Renaissance, Modern, Non-Western "AICT is a royalty-free image exchange resource for the educational community."
ArtServe, a large collection of art from the Mediterranean Basin.
ArtVex - They claim over 10,000 free images.
Astronomy Images Database: Messier Catalog. Find more images from NASA
Astronomy images from NNSDC - Other image sites from the U.S. government.
Awesome Clipart for Kids [Archive] - Kid & family-friendly free clipart, banners, backgrounds, icons, documents and more. Although the site has vanished, we offer it here in an archive.
Backgrounds Archive - All photographs and background images in Public Domain. Animals, nature, cities, people and more. You do not need to register to save images.
Barry's Clip Art Server [Archive] - At one time, this was the largest source of free clip art on the web. It was later bought out and it then became a commercial site. This is an archive to the free version of the site. You can find an earlier archive here.
BetterTextures.com - You can find free textures here for your website or digital image.
British Library - This is their catalogue of illuminated manuscripts. You can see images of ancient religious documents with ornate images decorating the pages.
BYU's Harold B. Lee Library - This site includes many photographs and images.
Carol Gerten-Jackson - Scanned art images (CGFA) - Extensive collection of well-known art images and some biographical information about artists. Carol Gerten Mirror Sites. Some are in the public domain.
Christian Coptic Orthodox Church Of Egypt - With free photos and art related to the Coptic faith.
Christmas Clip Art Plus - Free holiday clip art
City-U Webimage Icons [Archive] - A site in Hong Kong with many small icons for download.
Classroom Clipart - With school-related images by category.
Clipart ETC - An online service of Florida's Educational Technology Clearinghouse. They claim to have at least 66,000 free clipart images.
Clipartlord.com - (Archive) This one has many three-dimensional looking images.
Clker.com - With many rastor and vector images in the public domain.
Coloring Spot [Archive] - This site contains line drawings of a variety of subjects. The line drawings can also serve as coloring handouts. This is the recent version of the page.
Copyright Free Photos - Copyright free photo library for any use.
Crazy Frankenstein - Free flash animations, wallpaper, clip art, and sounds.
DanceArt.Com [Archive] - With ballet and dance art.
DMOZ Open Directory - (Archive) A large collection of clip art links.
Diganta's World, a collection of Holiday ASCII art
Directory of Free Clip Art Sites [Archive] - Compiled by Lynne Levy, Ed.D. Schaub Instructional Technology Center Rowan University
Discovery Education's Clip Art Gallery - With many categories!
Dreamstime Free Images - Free illustration and Clipart pictures.
Dr. Zeus' Textures [Archive] - Backgrounds made with photographs.
Eos Development Resources - (Archive) A large collection of free graphics such as textures, borders and buttons.
ESL / EFL Clip Art [Archive] - For those who are dealing with students whose native language isn't English.
Fantasy Jr. - With free printables, coloring handouts, stencils, and more.
Fiona's Shark Mania [Archive], a site with shark clip art, graphics, and stories.
Freefoto - Offering free images to educators. They claim to have over 132,000 images.
Free Artistic Photos - A collection of free photos by category.
FreePhotos.se - (Archive) All public domain photographs. A collection of nature, animals, buildings, flowers, winter scenes and more. This site is by Magnus Rosendahl, Sweden.
Free Stock Images - With public domain images.
Free Stock Photos.biz - With over 12,000 categorized free images. [WARNING - Some inappropriate images for children are on this site. Use with caution.]
Free Vector - Vector clip art. This art has crisper edges than bitmap clipart.
Geek Philosopher [Archive] - Public Domain Photographs. Food, nature, people, animals and more - See more links to images at bottom of page.
Getty's Open Content Program - Access to 4,600 high-resolution images of the Museum’s collection free to use, modify, and publish for any purpose.
Harvard Universities Open Collections Program - With many images and manuscripts devoted to Islamic heritage, immigration in the U.S., working women, and Harvard history. Also see the digital collections.
Hasslefree Clip Art - Categorized with a large retro section.
IAD's free stuff page - Where you can find a lot more free stuff!
iClipart [Archive]- They claim to have millions of images, however, that claim seems to be a little exaggerated.
Images, Audio, and Video Clip [Archive] - Public Domain image sources compiled by Alix Peshette, Davis Joint Unified School District. Some resources on the sites are from copyrighted sources and must be acknowledged as such (Sites allow Fair Use for educational purposes).
International Mission Photography Archive - Offers historical images from Protestant and Catholic missionary collections in Britain, Norway, Germany, France, Switzerland, and the United States.
Kaboose Clip Art - [Archive] They have a lot of categories.
Karen's Whimsy Public Domain Images - Scans by Karen Hatzigeorgiou - engravings and other artwork from a personal collection of old books, magazines, and post cards. Updated regularly. See her artwork - altered books and collage
Library of Congress - With prints and photographs in the public domain.
LifeArt Studios [Archive] - With free medical clip art.
Medical and Science Clip Art [Archive] - Free 3D Medical and Science clip Art from 3D Science.com.
Microsoft Office Clip Art and Media [Archive] - Large collection of clip art arranged by category.
MyFreeClipart - With many categorized images.
NASA Dryden Aircraft Photo Archive - Now called the Armstrong Flight Research Center.
The National Library of Australia's Documentary Images - Pictures Catalog This contains more than 13,000 digitized images of Australian pictorial works including watercolours, paintings, drawings, prints and photographs. See also Digital Collections and Picture Australia.
Netscape's Background Textures [Archive] - With several free textures for your background and desktop.
New York Public Library's Digital Collections - A huge collection. Some images you have to pay a licensing fee.
Open Clip Art Library - The images there are vector clipart (so they scale well to different sizes -- but bitmap thumbnails are also provided in PNG format. This resource is growing - submit your own clip art for sharing.
Phillip Martin Clip Art - Education related clip art. Also see his list of personal clip (Archive) art.
Phototeria - With many photographs in the public domain. WARNING - There are inappropriate pop-up ads on this site.
PhotoGraphic Libraries [Archive] - The stock images, film and photo archives listed provide a creative source for television producers, advertising agencies, libraries, education centres, picture researchers and Photojournalist researching visual communications.
Pics4Learning - Offering free images for educators.
PicDrome - A collection of public domain and copyright free pictures, under Creative Commons license releasing them into public domain.
Pitts Theological Library - The Digital Image Archive presents more than 50,651 images of Biblical illustrations, portraits of religious leaders, printers' devices, engravings of church buildings, and other theological topics.
Pixabay - This site has many free photographs. This site has a huge selection.
Pixelatestudio.com - Photographs from Holland and Belgium. Landscapes, animals, nature and more. Teachers may use images for educational purposes. No commercial use permitted. Site is by Hans Jasperse.
Public Domain Clip Art - They claim over 25,000 public domain images.
Public Domain Image - (Now bought out by PIXNIO) A categorized site full of free images in the public domain.
Public Domain Images - [Archive] a large collection of free and inexpensive photos and images. This is an archive of the site.
Public Domain Photos - With 8,000 clip art images and 5,000 free photos.
Public Domain Vectors - With over 35,000 free vector images.
Reusable Art - A collection of art that have expired copyrights and are now in the public domain. A good place to find old images.
Teacher Files Clip Art - With free educational clip art.
Thousand Cranes Peace Network [Archive] - This site has clip art of doves, cranes, sadako and more.
Timo's Christian Clipart Site - With a lot of Christian-related clip art.
Training Reference - Free Photos [Archive] - Galleries contain original, royalty free pictures and photos for use in training materials, presentations and websites. Many images from nature. Site by Steven Haines.
U.S. History Images - A large collection of images relating to U.S. history by Karen Whimsy.
Vintage - A Pinterest-like website with free images from the past. They claim to have over 100,000 images.
Vintage Resources - A large collection of vintage images in the public domain.
Vintage Valentine Art - With free art and art for sale.
Web Clip Art - (Archive) a site from About.com.
WiseGorilla Free Educational Clip Art [Archive] - Features free educational clip art and links to other quality educational clip art sites. This is an archive of the site.
WP Clipart - At present there are a little over 7,500 images. All public domain. All sized and adjusted to use easily in word processors. Site is by Paul Sherman.
Yale Divinity Digital Image & Text Library - A faculty-library initiative at Yale Divinity School that provides digital resources for teaching and research in the field of Biblical studies.
Yale University Beinecke Rare Books & Manuscript Library - The Beinecke collections afford opportunities for interdisciplinary research in such fields as medieval, Renaissance, and eighteenth-century studies, art history, photography, American studies, the history of printing, and modernism in art and literature.
Zorger.com - With many images in the public domain.
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Copyright Law and the Artist
What images can I use for free from the internet? Copyright issues are becoming an important aspect of students' and educators' work on the internet. Read about some copyright myths (Archive), and licensing still images. You can read about copyright law and the internet, and you must see The Copyright Website (Archive). The latest copyright news and legislation can be found at copyright.gov. Educators have some additional rights to copyrights. You may visit Copyright and the Visual Arts [Archive] for questions and counsel. There is an interesting site talking about the copyright extension that was passed by our legislators.
If you're not sure about the status of a copyright, you can enter the title and/or author of the work at the U.S. Copyright Office. See the Teachers Guide to Copyright for more information.
Quick Reference - Public Domain Criteria
Date of Work |
Protected |
Term |
Created 1/1/78 or after |
When work is fixed in tangible medium of expression |
Life + 70 years (or if work of corporate authorship, the shorter of 95 years from publication, or 120 years from creation |
Published before 1923 |
In public domain |
None |
Published from 1923 - 1963 |
When published with notice |
28 years + could be renewed for 47 years, now extended by 20 years for a total renewal of 67 years. If not so renewed, now in public domain |
Published from 1964 - 1977 |
When published with notice |
28 years for first term; now automatic extension of 67 years for second term |
Created before 1/1/78 but not published |
1/1/78, the effective date of the 1976 Act which eliminated common law copyright |
Life + 70 years or 12/31/2002, whichever is greater |
Created before 1/1/78 but published between then and 12-31-2002 |
1/1/78, the effective date of the 1976 Act which eliminated common law copyright |
Life + 70 years or 12/31/2047, whichever is greater |
