Smithsonian Open Access

"The Death of Cleopatra" sculpture by Edmonia Lewis

Edmonia Lewis, The Death of Cleopatra, 1876, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC (artwork and digital image both in the public domain)

Smithsonian Open Access has arrived! Just this week the Smithsonian Institution released about 2.8 million images of objects in its collections with a Creative Commons Zero (CC0) designation, so you can now download them for free and use them however you want.

The Smithsonian’s Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery (which together make up the new National Museum of Asian Art) have been making images from their collections available on their website since 2015. This week’s release expands coverage to the rest of the Smithsonian’s 20 branches, including the Cooper Hewitt, the National Museum of African Art, and the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

More information is available in the Smithsonian’s press release.