PERRLA/Guides/APA 7/Painting or artwork

How to Cite a Painting or Artwork in APA 7

An APA 7 reference for a painting or other artwork lists the artist, the year the work was made in parentheses, the title in italics and sentence case, a description of the medium in square brackets, and the museum's name and location: city, state, and country. If you viewed the work on the museum's website, end with the link to its page there. The in-text citation is the artist's last name and the year: (Wyeth, 1948).

The format

Artist, A. A. (Year). Title of the artwork [Painting]. Museum Name, City, State, Country. URL

PERRLA APA Experts ยท Updated October 21, 2026
Checked against the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, 7th edition. Every example is formatted by PERRLA's reference engine.

First, the easy way: PERRLA

Choose Artwork, then Artwork in a museum. Add the artist in the Artist role, or a collective's name as a Group Artist. Type the title in Artwork Title, the year in Date Produced, and the medium in Format / Medium, like Painting or Oil on canvas. Then type the museum's name in Museum or Collection Name and fill in Artwork Location: City, State, and Country. If the museum's website has a page for the work, paste it into URL. PERRLA adds the italics, the square brackets, and the punctuation. If you type the title in title case, PERRLA points it out and offers Fix it for me to switch it to sentence case.

Made over several years? Type both years with a hyphen, like 1826 - 1827, and PERRLA turns it into an en dash. No title? Type a short description in square brackets in the title box, with the medium inside it, like [Oil painting of a nurse at a bedside], and leave Format / Medium blank. PERRLA keeps the brackets and leaves the description out of italics.

Art you saw outside a museum, like a memorial, a public sculpture, or a mural in a hospital lobby? Choose Artwork viewed outside a museum instead. It asks for a Publisher/Venue Name and a URL, so the reference ends with the site that documents the work and its link.

Not using PERRLA yet? Here is how to build the same reference by hand.

The parts of the reference

1. Artist

Start with the artist's last name, a comma, and their initials. Leave off titles like Sir or Dr. A group or collective that signs its work as one goes in as a group name, spelled out.

Fildes, L.

No known artist? Don't write Anonymous or Unknown. Move the title to the front of the reference, and the year comes after it.

2. Year

Give the year the work was made, in parentheses, followed by a period. Not the year you saw it, and not the date on the museum's web page. For work made over several years, give the range with an en dash.

(1948).

Museums sometimes date a work by when it was first shown: Tate lists Fildes's painting as exhibited 1891, so the year is 1891. No date at all? Write (n.d.).

3. Title

Write the title in italics and in sentence case: capitalize the first word, the first word after a colon, and proper nouns. Use the title the museum gives the work.

The mission of mercy: Florence Nightingale receiving the wounded at Scutari

Untitled? Put a short description in square brackets where the title goes, not in italics.

4. Medium in brackets

Right after the title, describe the medium in square brackets. It can be general or specific, and the museum's own medium line is a good place to look. Capitalize the first word, and don't italicize it.

Christina's world [Tempera on panel].

[Painting], [Oil painting], [Lithograph], [Sculpture], [Bronze sculpture], [Mixed media], and [Installation] all work. This part is what tells your reader the source is a work of art.

5. Museum and location

Give the museum's name as the museum writes it, then its city, its state's two-letter abbreviation for a U.S. museum, and its country. APA includes the country even for museums in the United States.

The Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY, United States.

Outside the United States, give the city and country only: National Portrait Gallery, London, United Kingdom.

6. URL

If you viewed the work on the museum's website, end with the link to the artwork's own page, not the museum's home page. Don't add "Retrieved from" before it or a period after it.

https://www.moma.org/collection/works/78455

Art outside a museum, like a public memorial, ends with the name of the site that documents it and that page's link instead of a museum and location.

Examples

A painting in a U.S. museum

Andrew Wyeth's 1948 painting of his neighbor Anna Christina Olson, who lived with a degenerative muscle condition, often discussed in health humanities and disability studies courses. MoMA's collection page gives the medium as tempera on panel, and a U.S. museum takes the city, the state, and the country.

  • Parenthetical citation(Wyeth, 1948)
  • Narrative citationWyeth (1948)

A painting in a museum outside the United States

Jerry Barrett's 1857 painting of Florence Nightingale receiving the wounded at the Barrack Hospital in Scutari, a fixture of nursing history courses. It hangs in the National Portrait Gallery in London, so the location is the city and the country, with no state.

  • Parenthetical citation(Barrett, 1857)
  • Narrative citationBarrett (1857)

A painting with a specific medium description

Luke Fildes's The Doctor, a physician keeping watch at a sick child's bedside, is a touchstone in medical and nursing ethics courses. Tate credits the artist as Sir Luke Fildes and dates the painting exhibited 1891, so the reference uses Fildes, L. and 1891. The description can be more specific than [Painting].

  • Parenthetical citation(Fildes, 1891)
  • Narrative citationFildes (1891)

Artwork outside a museum: a public memorial

Glenna Goodacre's bronze Vietnam Women's Memorial on the National Mall honors the women who served in the Vietnam War, most of them nurses. It isn't in a museum, so the reference names the National Park Service page that documents it and ends with its link. The memorial was dedicated on November 11, 1993; the Park Service page gives 1988, the year Congress authorized it, as the dedication year, so check dates against a second source. The memorial's name is a proper noun, so it keeps its capitals in sentence case.

  • Parenthetical citation(Goodacre, 1993)
  • Narrative citationGoodacre (1993)

In-text citations

An APA 7 in-text citation for artwork gives the artist's last name and the year. Artwork has no page numbers, so don't add one.

  • One artist: (Wyeth, 1948) or Wyeth (1948)
  • Two artists: both names every time, joined by & inside parentheses and by and in your sentence
  • Three or more artists: the first artist and et al., starting with the first citation
  • A group or collective: the full name, with an abbreviation in square brackets the first time if you'll use it again
  • No known artist: the title in italics and title case, then the year: (Title of the Work, 1890)
  • No date: n.d. in place of the year: (Artist, n.d.)

A narrative citation puts the artist in your sentence: Barrett (1857) painted Nightingale at the center of the ward, surrounded by the wounded. Name the work in your sentence too, in italics and title case: Wyeth's Christina's World (1948).

Common mistakes

  • Fildes, L. (1891). The doctor. Tate Britain.Fildes, L. (1891). The doctor [Oil painting]. Tate Britain, London, United Kingdom.Artwork always takes a description of the medium in square brackets, and the museum is followed by its location: city, state for a U.S. museum, and country.
  • Christina's World [Tempera on panel].Christina's world [Tempera on panel].Titles of works take sentence case in the reference. Title case is for naming the work in your sentence.
  • The doctor [Oil painting].The doctor [Oil painting].Only the title is italic. The bracketed description sits outside the italics.
  • Fildes, L. (2026). The doctor [Oil painting].Fildes, L. (1891). The doctor [Oil painting].The date is the year the artist made the work, not the year you saw it or the date of the museum's web page.
  • Barrett, J. (1857). The mission of mercy: Florence Nightingale receiving the wounded at Scutari [Painting]. National Portrait Gallery, London, England, United Kingdom.Barrett, J. (1857). The mission of mercy: Florence Nightingale receiving the wounded at Scutari [Painting]. National Portrait Gallery, London, United Kingdom.Outside the United States, the location is the city and the country. The state slot is for U.S. museums.

Quick checklist

  • The artist's last name and initials, or the title first when there's no artist
  • The year the work was made, or a range with an en dash
  • Title in italics and sentence case, or a bracketed description if it's untitled
  • The medium in square brackets, outside the italics
  • Museum name, city, state (U.S. only), and country
  • The link to the artwork's page if you viewed it on the museum's website

Questions students ask

Do I include the museum's website in an APA artwork reference?

Yes, if you viewed the work there. APA ends a museum artwork reference with the link to the artwork's page on the museum's site, after the location. Use the page for that one work, not the museum's home page.

Is it [Painting] or [Oil on canvas]?

Either. APA lets the description be general, like [Painting], or specific, like [Oil painting] or [Oil on canvas]. The medium line on the museum's page is a good source for the specific version.

How do I cite an untitled painting in APA 7?

Put a short description of the work in square brackets where the title would go, and don't italicize it. Fold the medium into the description, like [Oil painting of a nurse at a bedside], so the reference doesn't need a second set of brackets.

What if the artist is unknown?

Start the reference with the title, followed by the medium description, then the year. In the text, cite the title in italics and title case with the year. Don't write Anonymous unless the work is signed that way.

Do I cite a sculpture, a photograph, or a drawing the same way?

Yes. The same format covers paintings, sculptures, photographs, prints, drawings, digital art, crafts, and installations in a museum. Only the bracketed description changes: [Sculpture], [Photograph], [Lithograph], and so on.

Can I cite the museum plaque next to a painting?

You can, but cite the plaque, not the painting: a bracketed description of the plaque, the plaque's own date or n.d., and the museum and location. APA treats a plaque as a secondary source, so when you can, cite the information from a primary source your reader can find.

Rules checked against the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (7th ed.), Sections 8.17, 9.8, 9.11, 9.12, 9.14, 9.17, 9.19, 9.21, 9.22, 9.29, 9.34, and 10.14, and the APA Style website's artwork reference examples. Example sources verified on October 21, 2026, at The Museum of Modern Art's collection page for Christina's World, the National Portrait Gallery's collection record for NPG 6202, Tate's collection page for The Doctor, and the National Park Service's page for the Vietnam Women's Memorial, with the 1993 dedication confirmed in the VA's 30th anniversary story.

PERRLA builds the artwork reference from the artist, title, medium, and museum you type in, brackets and italics included.

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