Photo Archives Resources

The Photo Archives is the repository for the Museum's photographic and digital image collections.

Purchasing images

Beginning November 1, 2013, The Field Museum Photo Archives will no longer provide services for image or permissions requests to external clients. A collection of Field Museum images are offered via Getty Images.

If you have a request for an image not currently offered via Getty Images, please use the Contact Photo Archives form. Suggested future additions to Getty Images will be periodically reviewed. Submission of image requests to The Field Museum neither guarantees availability nor response.

Reference Inquiries

For general reference inquiries about the collection, please use the Contact Photo Archives form. Due to the high volume of requests received, we are only able to respond to select inquiries.

Field Museum images on Flickr Commons

The Library's Photo Archives joined Flickr Commons in 2009 and invited the public to help describe a selection of our historic photographs. The images from The Field Museum Photo Archives on the Flickr site include several historic expeditions, and several hundred World's Columbian Exposition images from the Library's Rare Book Room. These images are made available for people to discover, comment on, share and use.

  • Leave a comment or tag an image on The Commons if you can share information about it
  • Share the image on your own website or blog
    • Use the image for your own creative non-commercial work.

You can help by linking back to the image on Flickr when you share or use a Field Museum image that you found on The Flickr Commons site.