Artwork & Painting Citation Generator
Cite a painting, sculpture or other work of art you saw in a museum or on its website. Enter the artist, title, year, medium and the museum or URL, and get the reference and in-text citation in APA 7, MLA 9, Chicago 18 and 10,834 other styles. Free, no sign-up.
How to Cite an Artwork
- 1. Enter the artwork details. Type the artist, the work's title, the year it was created, and the medium — oil on canvas, marble, photograph. Name the museum or gallery that holds it along with its city; if you viewed the work online, paste the URL of the page instead.
- 2. Pick a style. Choose APA, MLA, Chicago, or any of the 10,834 styles. APA puts the medium in brackets after the title — [Painting], [Sculpture] — while MLA lists the museum and city as the container after the year.
- 3. Generate. We build a full artwork reference. Edit any field, then copy it or export to BibTeX, RIS, CSV, or Word.
Artwork Citation Examples
Edward Hopper's Nighthawks, seen at the Art Institute of Chicago, and the same work on the museum's website.
APA 7th edition
Reference list, in person:
Hopper, E. (1942). Nighthawks [Painting]. Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL, United States.
Reference list, online:
Hopper, E. (1942). Nighthawks [Painting]. Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL, United States. https://www.artic.edu/artworks/111628/nighthawks
In-text (parenthetical):
(Hopper, 1942)
In-text (narrative):
Hopper (1942)
MLA 9th edition
Works Cited, in person:
Hopper, Edward. Nighthawks. 1942, Art Institute of Chicago. Oil on canvas.
Works Cited, online:
Hopper, Edward. Nighthawks. 1942, Art Institute of Chicago, www.artic.edu/artworks/111628/nighthawks.
In-text citation:
(Hopper)
Chicago 18th edition (notes and bibliography)
Footnote:
Edward Hopper, Nighthawks, 1942, oil on canvas, 84.1 × 152.4 cm, Art Institute of Chicago.
Bibliography:
Hopper, Edward. Nighthawks. 1942. Oil on canvas, 84.1 × 152.4 cm. Art Institute of Chicago.
The Format / medium box prints exactly what you type in every style. Type Painting for APA's brackets, then, for MLA and Chicago, edit the line to the physical medium (Oil on canvas) and move it to the end as shown. Chicago also expects the date and size before the museum.
Artist, Date, Medium and Museum
| APA 7 | MLA 9 | Chicago 18 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Order | Artist (year). Title [Medium]. Museum, City, State, Country. | Artist. Title. Year, Museum, City. Medium (optional). | Artist, Title, date, medium, size, museum. |
| Title | Italic, sentence case | Italic, Title Case | Italic, Title Case |
| Medium | In brackets after the title, a short label such as Painting or Sculpture | Optional, at the end | After the date: oil on canvas |
| Online | Add the museum's page URL, even if you saw the work in person | Add the URL after the museum | Add the URL at the end of the note |
APA asks for the museum's city, state or province, and country, separated by commas. Type all of that into the Publisher / Site box. MLA drops the city when it is in the museum's name (Art Institute of Chicago).
- No title. APA puts a short description in square brackets, without italics, in the title position. MLA and Chicago take a plain description there too, with no italics or quotation marks.
- Uncertain date. Use ca. or c. followed by the year. The Year box takes the year; add the abbreviation in Edit.
- More than one work by the same artist. Cite each separately. They get a, b, c after the year in APA only when the years are the same.
- A reproduction in a book. Cite the book, not the museum; the artwork goes in the book citation or the figure caption.
Which Tool Do You Need?
| You have | Use |
|---|---|
| A painting, sculpture or installation in a museum, gallery or museum website | This page |
| A photograph, a chart, an infographic or any other online picture | Image Citation Generator |
| A figure or table you reproduce in your own paper | Figure Citation Generator |
| A museum show rather than a single work | Exhibition Citation Generator |
Frequently Asked Questions
- How do I cite a painting in APA 7?
- Give the artist, the year, the title in italics, the medium in brackets, the museum with its city and country, and a URL if the work is on the museum's website: Hopper, E. (1942). Nighthawks [Painting]. Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL, United States. In text: (Hopper, 1942).
- How do I cite artwork in MLA 9?
- Artist, the title in italics, the year, the museum and, if it is not in the museum's name, the city. The medium is optional and closes the entry: Hopper, Edward. Nighthawks. 1942, Art Institute of Chicago. Oil on canvas. In text: (Hopper).
- How do I cite a painting in Chicago style?
- The note lists the artist in normal order, the title in italics, the date, the medium, the size and the museum. The bibliography entry inverts the artist's name. A painting you discuss in the text sometimes needs no note: name the artist, title, date and location in your sentence instead.
- How do I cite an artwork I saw online?
- Add the museum page's URL: at the end of the APA reference, after the museum in MLA, and at the end of the note in Chicago. If the work is on the museum's site, APA asks for the URL even if you saw it in person.
- What if the artwork has no date or the artist is unknown?
- In APA, write n.d. for no date and start with the title if there is no artist. In MLA, leave the date out or give a circa date; start with the title for an unknown artist. In Chicago, use ca. before an approximate year.
- Which citation styles does the artwork generator support?
- APA 7, MLA 9 and Chicago 18 at the top of the list, and any of the other 10,834 styles. Switch style and the same details are reformatted.