How do I cite an image in APA style?

Artwork

According to the APA Style Blog, the APA Manual (6th ed. 7.07, pp. 209–210) has a section about audiovisual resources but it focuses more on audio, visual, and tv and it doesn’t include artwork like paintings.  The format for a painting in a museum is:

LastName, FirstName. (year). Title of work [Medium]. Location.

Monet, C. (1900). The water lily pond [Painting]. Boston, MA: Museum of Fine Arts.

However, if you did not see the painting in person, but rather found the image online through the museum’s website the format would be:

LastName, FirstName. (year). Title of work [Medium]. Retrieved from URL.

Monet, C. (1900). The water lily pond [Painting]. Retrieved from http://www.mfa.org/collections/object/the-water-lily-pond-33697

See the APA Style Blog post “There’s an Art to It” for more information.

Reproduction of Images

If you are reproducing an image from a journal article the format will be:

From “Title of Article,” by A. N. Author and C. O. Author, year, Title of Journal, Volume, p. xx. Copyright (year) by Name of Copyright Holder.

From “Social Media: A Contextual Framework to Guide Research and Practice,” by L. A. McFarland and R. E. Ployhart, 2015, Journal of Applied Psychology, 100, p. 1656. Copyright 2015 by the American Psychological Association.

The reference entry for the citation above (don’t forget to indent the second and subsequent lines)::

McFarland, L. A., & Ployhart, R. E. (2015). Social media: A contextual framework to guide research and practice. Journal of Applied Psychology, 100, 1653–1677. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0039244

For more information please see the APA Style Blog’s series “Navigating Copyright for Reproduced Images.”

More information:

• APA guide (Shapiro Library)
• APA Research Paper Basics Video Tutorials (Atomic Learning – log in using your SNHU email username and password)

For further help please contact the Wolak Learning Center at 603.645.9606 (UC Students) and Online Writing Center at 866.721.1662 (Online/COCE Students) for assistance with in-text citations.

You may also want to consider:

• How do I cite a YouTube video in APA style?
• How do I cite a website in APA style?
• How do I cite a source with multiple authors in APA style (in-text)?

This information is intended to be a guideline, not expert advice. Please refer to the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association or speak to your professor about the appropriate way to cite sources in APA style.

References

American Psychological Association. (2010). Publication manual of the American Psychological Association. Washington, D.C.: American Psychological Association.

Hume-Pratuch, Jeff. There’s an art to it [Blog post]. Retrieved from http://blog.apastyle.org/apastyle/2010/04/theres-an-art-to-it.html

Lee, Chelsea. Navigating copyright for reproduced images: overview [Blog post]. Retrieved from http://blog.apastyle.org/apastyle/2016/01/navigating-copyright-overview.html