Artists of the World, the successor to De Gruyter's Allgemeines Künstlerlexikon, is the largest database of visual artists, offering biographical data as well as information on groups, collectives, and architectural practices. The database is continually expanded and updated. A specialised editorial team guarantees the accuracy, consistency and academic quality of the encyclopaedia entries written by internationally renowned scholars.
You can switch the website language to English at the very bottom of the page. Start with a simple or advanced search for the name of a person or group, a year of birth or death, a profession, a country or the author of the encyclopaedia entry. You can combine search terms in the advanced search using the operators AND and OR. It is also possible to search for keywords in the full text.
You can filter your results by entry type (artist, artist group, artist family) or by gender (female, male, diverse, unknown). There are various ways to sort the results, depending on the type of entry. The brief display of the results includes the name of the artist, group, or family, along with one or two details, such as the person's year of birth and death, their profession, or the year the group was founded. The detailed display then provides you with variant names, places of activity, group memberships, and more. The entries are rounded off with references and bibliographical information.
The database is continually updated to keep existing entries current. It is also constantly being expanded to include contemporary artists and new subjects. To this end, the editorial team regularly analyses reference works, academic publications and important international exhibitions and develops new thematic focuses in collaboration with academics. The database is further expanded through the creation of new collections covering renowned art prizes, current exhibitions and influential styles.
The database also contains articles from the following sources:
- Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart (also known as ‘Thieme-Becker’, published 1907-1950 in 37 volumes)
- Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler des XX. Jahrhunderts (published by Hans Vollmer in the 1950s)
- Nürnberger Künstlerlexikon
- Lexikon der Künstlerinnen
- Pariser Lehrjahre. Ein Lexikon zur Ausbildung deutscher Maler in der französischen Hauptstadt.
Please pay attention to both the publisher’s and the university library’s terms of use.
The database is accessible from anywhere on campus via unikat and DBIS (switch to English at the top of the page). University members can access it remotely via VPN. Please note: enter https://univpn.uni-graz.at/ub in the VPN address field.
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If you have any questions about this database, please contact ub.zeitschriften(at)uni-graz.at.