The best of 2025

This year, the Bloomsbury Visual Arts hub grew faster than ever, with an array of new collections to support your work across a wider range of courses and subjects.

We’ve enhanced our Architecture offerings with the addition of the Bloomsbury Global Encyclopedia of Women in Architecture 1960–2020 and Architecture Design & Practice Online 2.

And if you’re studying or researching Art History and Visual Culture, you’ll find a rich canvas of collections recently launched and now ready to explore. Discover Contemporary Art; Art Markets, Museums and Collecting; Bloomsbury Encyclopedia of New Media Art; Art and Material Culture; and the Art, History and Visual Culture Reference Collection.

Wondering where to start on a platform with so many new possibilities? Here’s a selection of the most viewed content of the year, all free to access until the end of January 2026.

• 'Introduction' from The Bloomsbury Global Encyclopedia of Women in Architecture 1960-2020
• 'General Introduction' from World History of Design, Volume 1: Prehistoric Times to World War I on Bloomsbury Design Library
• 'Basics' from Basics Photography 01: Composition 2nd Edition on Bloomsbury Applied Visual Arts
• 'Roy Ascott' from Bloomsbury Encyclopedia of New Media Art
• 'African American Art: A Contextual Survey' from African American Visual Artists: an Annotated Bibliography on Art History and Visual Culture Reference Collection
• 'Introduction to the Anthology' from Visual Activism in the 21st Century: Art, Protest and Resistance in an Uncertain World on Contemporary Art
• 'Introduction' from Museums and Modernity: Art Galleries and the Making of Modern Culture on Art Markets, Museums and Collecting

Which teaching and learning resources have instructors and learners been turning to this year? Free-to-access and authored by experts, try adding these popular options to your teaching toolkit:

• Graphic Design subject guide
• Love bibliographic guide
• Decolonization and Design lesson plan

Find out more about our collections as well as our trial and purchasing options.

Main image: Carnival scene with masked revellers. Illustration by Robert Polarck. Hand-coloured pochoir (stencil) lithograph from the French luxury fashion magazine Art, Gout, Beaute, 1923. (Photo by: Florilegius/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)