Colloquium - Allison McCann

"Image Permissions for Art Historians"

Visual evidence is the cornerstone of art historical scholarship, and art historians frequently need access to reproduction-quality images for their teaching and research. The majority of academic publishers require their contracted authors to source high-resolution photo assets and the licenses for their use, but most early-career scholars have never had to broker such deals. This presentation will teach participants how to acquire both high-quality images and their attendant licensing for publication across multiple platforms. Drawing on my experience as the image rights coordinator in the publications department at the Getty Research Institute, I’ll walk the group through the laws and conventions governing the image permissions process and some approaches for organizing and streamlining your workload. Participants are encouraged to bring questions and images from their own research and works-in-progress; we’ll identify the potential rights-holders and strategies for obtaining permission to publish those images.