Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute Library

Established in 1962, the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute Library is one of the major art history reference libraries in the country. Free and open year-round on weekdays, the Clark Library is – rare among research collections – open to the public without qualification. Focusing on post-medieval art, the Clark Library’s collection is outstanding in Italian and Northern Renaissance, Baroque, and French nineteenth-century, history of photography, and contemporary art fields and is well balanced in other areas as well. The Library’s resources include approximately 300,000 books, bound periodicals, auction sales catalogues, as well as a growing collection of digital assets. The Library holds a collection of over 5,000 contemporary artists’ books, the Julius S. Held Collection of Rare Books, the Mary Ann Beinecke Collection of Decorative Arts, and the David A. Hanson Collection on the History of Photomechanical Reproduction. Of note is the Library’s Institutional Archives and the Sterling and Francine Clark Papers which include diaries, correspondence, inventories of artwork, and personal papers of the Institute’s founders.