Allgemeines Künstlerlexikon (AKL) or World Biographical Dictionary of Artists – Guide
Vika Paranyuk
October 2007; revised May 2008
AKL for short, or World Biographical Dictionary of Artists, is one of “the most extensive, up-to-date and authoritative art history reference” databases.
Coverage: Visual artists from all over the world, from antiquity to the present.
Sources and content:
- All published volumes of the Allgemeines Künstlerlexikon – currently, there are 56 volumes ending with Goepfart – full articles
- Thieme-Becker (A to Z) and Vollmer (A to Z) – brief biographical entries
- AKL’s 10-volume Bio-Bibliographical Index A-Z (AKL Index) – for the letters not yet covered by the AKL – brief biographical entries
- First AKL supplement volume (which covers A to Azzopardi) – full articles
- Künstlerlexikon der Antike (Dictionary of Artists of the Classical World) – full articles
These major standard art history sources are located in the Reference Room.
The database contains a total of approx. 1,102,720 searchable documents. Keep in mind that not all artists have full entries yet, as AKL online is a work in progress.
The database now provides approx. 3,700 original manuscripts in PDF of non-German writing AKL authors to improve accessibility for the foreign-language users. If an original language article is available, there is the link “Original article by the author” above the AKL full text. The AKL team plans to continue to add original articles. NOTE: the text of these articles is not searchable.
Although the search interface and some search terms are in English, the full text entries are in German only (with the exception of the above mentioned 3,700 entries)
There are a number of ways to get to the AKL online; the one that I prefer is through searching the Library website. You can simply enter AKL in the search site box.
Simple Search
Simple search is a default search interface and is available as soon as you log into the database.
The drop-down menu on the right lists the available fields, or in the AKL speak, search keys that you may use to formulate your searches. Some of these keys are not as self-explanatory as the others. To find out what a particular search key stands for and how to use it, select a key and click on the button with the question mark.
I would like to demonstrate searching by two different search keys.
Searching by name
The default seach key is Name (general), or NAM. It includes artist name, Vollmer and Thieme-Becker names, married name, pseudonym, wrongly attributed name and all other name variations that are listed in the drop-down menu. NOTE: if you are not sure what version of the name in question you have, best to search using this key, as it is all-inclusive.
- Select NAM
- Enter Bourgeois, Louise in the search box
NOTE: while the database is not case sensitive, you must use a comma to separate last and first names. Try eliminating the comma and see what happens.
Before we take a look at the result set, I would like to point out the orange bar that runs across the top of the page; it is always there as long as you have a set of results, and it has three tabs:
- Review – your search history; it allows you to re-run your previous searches instead of constructing them anew
- Shortlist – a list of results
- Title data – full view of results
Let’s look at the result set:
There are three entries for Louise Bourgeois, two of which are under her married name. The default shortlist view provides the most basic information: the name, occupation (both, in German and English), date of birth and the source. In this example, the biographical information is from the current AKL, v. XIII (the open book icon indicates a full text article), p. 375; from Vollmer, 1961 and Vollmer, 1955.
Let’s examine one of the results by simply clicking on it. Note that your view changed from shortlist to title data, or full view.
At the top of the document, there are entries for Louise Bourgeois from other sources. You may click on the links to the sources to see full titles.
The full text article is divided into the following sections: Vita, Biogramm, Works, Exhibitions, and Bibliography; the author of the text completes this section.
The drop-down menu on the left lists search operators that you may use to modify your results. These operators are useful in some instances; for example, when you have a long list of artists with the same last name, you may want to choose to restrict your results to a medium or date of birth, etc.
Searching by bibliography, or QUE
This index contains all the words in the Bibliography section of AKL documents and all words in the source details shown after the further names field.
- Select QUE
- Enter Christiansen, K
This search will find artists (currently up to Goepfart) that the person under the name of Christiansen, K wrote about. Once you are inside an entry, I recommend using the Ctrl F command to go straight to the citations by the author since your search term is not highlighted.
I would like to point out another important feature in this database. Even though there may be very little information about an artist, at the bottom of the page with search results you will always find a link to the Union Catalog – Search for further literature in the GBV Union Catalogue – that may provide further relevant reading. Through the Union Catalog you are accessing a multimaterial database of more than 780 German libraries.
- Select NAM
- Enter Villard de Honnecourt in the search box
- Click on the Union Catalog link
In some cases, you may be able to access the table of content of a book electronically.
Combining search keys in Simple Search
You may combine two or more terms using Simple Search.
Let’s search for Artimisia Gentileschi and her works depicting Bathsheba.
- Select NAM
- Enter Gentileschi, Artemisia in the search box
- Continue your search string with WER (title of work)
- Enter Bathseba. NOTE the German spelling
Your search string should look like this: Gentileschi, Artemisia WER Bathseba. NOTE: you do not need operator “and” before WER because it is understood.
As I mentioned, you may also execute more complex searches in Simple Search by combining more than two fields. For example, you may want to identify female painters in 16th century Florence. Feel free to construct your own query and play with various search keys.
- Select GES (search key for gender) and enter female in the search box
- Select KBH (search key for occupation) and enter painter
- Select the next search key, ORT (key for place) and enter Florenz. NOTE: again, Florenz should be entered in German
- Select ZTA (key for period) and enter 15* to indicate the span of the 16th century
Your search string should look like this: female KBH painter ORT florenz ZTA 15* NOTE: remember to select the first search key from the drop-down menu; in the case of this example it is GES for gender. NOTE: since the database is not case sensitive, you do not need to use caps for search keys; I prefer it for visual clarity.
Advanced Search
Advanced Search is a guided search that allows you to combine up to four different search keys. A drawback in this interface is that you do not have immediate access to the explanation of the search keys, which are idiosyncratic enough to warrant having it at your fingertips. You may perform the same searches as we did using Simple Search. Anything you can do in Advanced Search is possible to do in Simple Search. If you find Advanced Search easier, by all means use it.
Emailing, printing, and other features
Abbreviations in the gray area on the left of the page is a static link to full titles of all the abbreviations used in AKL articles.
Save Info takes you to the page with two options: email and print. Once you are in a record, you get a third option – saveset.
If you wish to email the results of your searches:
- Choose the range of the citations you want to email
- Choose format – full or short
- Enter an email address(es) in the email box
If you wish to print the results of your searches:
- Select the range of the results you would like to print
- Click the screen button, which will open a new window
- Click the print icon in your browser
If you wish to save your results for the session:
- Select the title (you must save one at a time)
- Click Saveset at the top of the page
Saveset is your personal storage space in the database where you can save the titles of interest. NOTE: these titles will be saved for the duration of the session only; once you log out, your saved titles will be deleted.
I want to say a few words about the help section in this database. The AKL team has a few wrinkles to iron out. The example that is provided for Simple Search does not work. If we enter DaVinci, Leonardo, as instructed, we get strange results. However, if we key in the artist’s name as Leonardo Da Vinci, we get the correct person, but we have to figure it out on our own. Also, the instructions on how to formulate more complex searches are not always transparent, and it may take some fiddling around to get what you want. And that is the main point – you need to spend some time to get familiar with the AKL database in order to access the wealth of information that it contains.
