To cite a picture housed in an institution, such as an art museum, include the artist's name, picture name, year of creation, art medium and the institution’s name. If no creation date is available, use the abbreviation “n.d.” for “no date.” The title of the artwork should be italicized. If the work is untitled, give a brief description for it, such as “Photograph of an oak tree”; this description should not be italicized. The following example shows the format for this citation variation:
Talbot, William Henry Fox. An Oak Tree in Winter. 1842. Photograph. J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles.
Citations of reproductions of artwork or pictures found in print sources will also include the information provided in the institution citation, but they will add the book or magazine title, place of publication, page number and medium of publication. If the print source has an editor, include the name after the source’s title. Use the following example as a guide for this type of citation:
Landry, Bob. Fred Astaire (italicized). 1945. Photograph. Life Photo Collection. Life, The Classic Collection (italicized). New York City: Life. 29. Print.
Follow a similar format for pictures obtained from electronic sources, such as a website. In place of the book or magazine information, you will include the name of the website, which should be italicized, and the date you accessed the picture, written in day-month-year format. An example citation is: Rosenblum, Walter. Villagescape. 1957. Photograph. Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C. Smithsonian Institution Collections Search Center. Web. 24 July 2014.
The in-text citations in your paper refer to the listing on your Works Cited page. Basic MLA in-text citations use the author-page number format in parentheses, which you can use if your source came from a print publication. Use the artist's last name only if you sourced the picture online or institution. If you reference multiple works by the same artist, include the italicized picture title after the artist's name and a comma, as in the example: (Eisenstaedt, Marilyn Monroe).