Cleveland Museum of Art API
Free Cleveland Museum of Art API with no key: 60,000+ artworks with open-access images, provenance, exhibition history and full metadata. Tested curl example.
Endpoint tested and returned HTTP 200 on 19 Aug 2026
What is the Cleveland Museum of Art API?
The Cleveland Museum of Art Open Access API is a free, key-free API providing more than 60,000 artworks with high-resolution open-access images, provenance records, exhibition history and detailed metadata.
Cleveland was an early mover on open access and released a large share of its collection under CC0. The API exposes not just images and titles but provenance chains and exhibition history, which is unusually deep for a free museum API.
Filtering by `cc0` restricts results to works you can definitively reuse, which saves checking each record individually — a practical convenience the larger museum APIs do not offer as directly.
Quick facts
- Base URL
https://openaccess-api.clevelandart.org/api- Authentication
- No API key required.
- Rate limit
- No published hard limit; fair use expected.
- Pricing
- Free. CC0 works are freely reusable including commercially.
- CORS
- Not enabled — call it from your server
- Official docs
- Read the docs
How to use the Cleveland Museum of Art API
Every request below was executed against the live API on 19 Aug 2026, and the response shown is the real body it returned — not an illustration.
1. Fetch artworks from the open access collection
GET https://openaccess-api.clevelandart.org/api/artworks/?limit=1
curl 'https://openaccess-api.clevelandart.org/api/artworks/?limit=1'const res = await fetch("https://openaccess-api.clevelandart.org/api/artworks/?limit=1");
if (!res.ok) throw new Error(`Request failed: ${res.status}`);
const data = await res.json();
console.log(data);import requests
res = requests.get("https://openaccess-api.clevelandart.org/api/artworks/?limit=1", timeout=20)
res.raise_for_status()
print(res.json()){
"info": {
"total": 68770,
"parameters": {
"skip": 0,
"limit": 1,
"select": "accession_number,accession_number_sortable,cover_accession_number,department,gallery,classification_type,collection,department"
}
},
"data": [
{
"id": 94979,
"accession_number": "1915.534",
"share_license_status": "CC0",
"tombstone": "Nathaniel Hurd, c. 1765. John Singleton Copley (American, born The Thirteen Colonies, 1738–1815). Oil on canvas; framed: 90.5 x 78 x 6.5 cm (35 5/8 x 30 11/16 x 2 9/16 in.); unframed: 76.2 x 64.8 cm (30 x 25 1/2 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Gift of the John Huntington Art and Polytechnic Trust, 1915.534",
"current_location": "204 Colonial American",
"title": "Nathaniel Hurd",
"creation_date": "c. 1765",
"creation_date_earliest": 1760,
"creation_date_latest": 1770,
"artists_tags": [
"male"
],
"culture": [
"America"
],
"technique": "oil on canvas",
"support_materials": [],
"department": "American Painting and Sculpture",
"collection": "American - Painting",
"type": "Painting",
"measurements": "Framed: 90.5 x 78 x 6.5 cm (35 5/8 x 30 11/16 x 2 9/16 in.); Unframed: 76.2 x 64.8 cm (30 x 25 1/2 in.)",
"dimensions": {
"framed": {
"height": 0.905,
"height_inch": 35,
"height_inch_fraction": 0.625,
"width": 0.78,
"width_inch": 30,
"width_inch_fraction": 0.6875,
"depth": 0.065,
"depth_inch": 2,
"depth_iParameters
| Parameter | Type | Required | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
limit | integer | Optional | Results per page, max 1000. 10 |
skip | integer | Optional | Pagination offset. 20 |
q | string | Optional | Search query across the collection. vase |
cc0 | boolean | Optional | Restrict to CC0-licensed works only. true |
has_image | string | Optional | Only return works with images. 1 |
Response fields
info.totalinteger- Total works matching the query.
data[].titlestring- Artwork title.
data[].creatorsarray- Artist records with role and biography.
data[].creation_datestring- Date or period of creation.
data[].imagesobject- Web, print and full-resolution image URLs.
data[].share_license_statusstring- CC0 or restricted.
data[].provenancearray- Ownership history of the object.
What you can build with the Cleveland Museum of Art API
- Source CC0 artwork images with confirmed reuse rights
- Research provenance and exhibition history
- Build art discovery tools with rich metadata
- Create educational resources on art history
Common errors and how to fix them
Missing images object
Not every record has a digitised image.
Fix: Pass has_image=1 to filter to records with images.
Restricted license status
The work is not CC0.
Fix: Filter with cc0=true when you need images you can definitively reuse.
Cleveland Museum of Art API — frequently asked questions
Is the Cleveland Museum of Art API free?
Yes, completely free with no API key, and a large portion of the collection is released under CC0.
How do I get only images I can reuse?
Pass cc0=true to restrict results to CC0-licensed works, which can be used freely including commercially.
Does it include provenance information?
Yes, which is unusual for a free museum API. Records include ownership history and exhibition history alongside the standard metadata.
How does it compare with the Met API?
Cleveland offers deeper provenance and exhibition data and a direct CC0 filter; the Met has a larger collection. Both are free and key-free.
Tools that pair with this API
Image Cropper
Crop images online to an exact rectangle with pixel-precise x, y, width and height inputs or aspect-ratio presets. Free, private and browser-based.
JSON Formatter
Format, beautify and minify JSON online with 2-space, 4-space or tab indentation. Sort keys alphabetically and catch syntax errors instantly — free and private.
Alternatives to Cleveland Museum of Art API
If Cleveland Museum of Art does not fit, these photography & design apis cover similar ground. Every one was called before publishing, and each links to its own reference page with a working curl command and the response it returned.
| API | What it does | Auth | CORS | Last verified |
|---|---|---|---|---|
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| COLOURlovers | Free COLOURlovers API with no key: community-voted colour palettes, individual colours and patterns with hex values, view counts and popularity ranks. Tested example included. | No key | No | 21 Aug 2026 |
Cleveland Museum of Art is an independent third-party service and is not affiliated with ByteTools or ByteVancer. Details on this page were verified on 19 Aug 2026; always check the official documentation before relying on this API in production, as terms and limits can change.