Search Whitney artworks
whitney_search_artworksSearch the Whitney Museum's collection of 27,000+ artworks by title, artist, medium, date, or classification. Filter by on-view status, sort results, and get summary records.
Instructions
Search the Whitney Museum's online collection of 27,000+ works.
Returns slim records (id, title, artist, date, medium, classification, on view, first image URL). Call whitney_get_artwork for the full record including dimensions, credit line, description and all images.
Args:
title, artist, medium, date (string, optional): substring matches
classification (string, optional): exact match, e.g. "Drawings"
department ('collection' | 'artport' | 'special', optional)
on_view (boolean, optional)
sort ('default' | 'title_asc' | 'title_desc' | 'most_viewed' | 'random')
page (number, default 1), limit (number, 1-30, default 10)
response_format ('markdown' | 'json', default 'markdown')
Returns: { total, count, page, has_more, next_page?, results[], note? }
Examples:
"watercolours with flowers in the title" -> title="flower", classification="Drawings", medium="watercolor"
"show me something at random from the collection" -> sort="random", limit=3
Notes:
Medium spellings follow US usage ("watercolor", "color").
Date is free text ("1915-1931, printed 1976-1977"), so filter loosely and check results.
Input Schema
| Name | Required | Description | Default |
|---|---|---|---|
| date | No | Words in the display date, e.g. '1977'. This is a free-text field, not a number, so ranges are unreliable | |
| page | No | 1-based page number; the API returns 30 records per page | |
| sort | No | Result ordering; 'most_viewed' ranks by views over the last 30 days | default |
| limit | No | Maximum records to return from the fetched page (1-30). Keep this low unless you need the detail — Whitney records are verbose. | |
| title | No | Words appearing in the title (substring match) | |
| artist | No | Words appearing in the artist credit line, e.g. 'Divola' | |
| medium | No | Words appearing in the medium, e.g. 'watercolour', 'lithograph' | |
| on_view | No | Restrict to works currently on view | |
| department | No | Which collection the work belongs to | |
| classification | No | Exact classification; casing matters. Common values: Paintings, Drawings, Prints, Photographs, Sculpture, Installations, Film and Video, Time-based Media | |
| response_format | No | Output format: 'markdown' for reading, 'json' for machine processing | markdown |
Output Schema
| Name | Required | Description | Default |
|---|---|---|---|
| note | No | Advisory note about trimming or pagination | |
| page | Yes | Page that was fetched | |
| count | Yes | Records returned in this response | |
| total | Yes | Total matching records across all pages | |
| source | Yes | Attribution for the data, as the Whitney's terms ask for | |
| results | Yes | The records | |
| has_more | Yes | Whether further pages exist | |
| next_page | No | Page number to request next |