Artwork Meaning: One Painting, or Everything on the Page
Artwork is a work of art, and also the collective term for all the images prepared for a book, album or advertisement before printing.
Artwork has a narrow and a wide sense. In a gallery it means a single work of art. In publishing and design it means all the visual material of a job — illustrations, photographs, diagrams — as opposed to the text.
- A work of art. *Three artworks were stolen.*
- Visual material for print or screen. *Send the artwork by Friday.*
- Cover design. *The album artwork was painted by hand.*
Word forms
| Form | Word | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Noun (countable) | artwork | A striking artwork. |
| Noun (uncountable) | artwork | The artwork is not ready. |
| Plural | artworks | Sixty artworks on loan. |
| Related | artist | The artist signed it. |
How it is used in a sentence
- The gallery holds four hundred artworks.Countable, gallery use.
- The printer needs the artwork in CMYK.Uncountable, print use.
- The sleeve artwork became more famous than the record.Music packaging.
Artwork, art and illustration
- Art — the field, uncountable
- Artwork — a specific piece, or the images prepared for a job
- Illustration — an image made to accompany text
- Graphic — a designed visual element, often diagrammatic
A compound of *art* and *work*, first recorded in the nineteenth century in the printing trade, where it distinguished the pictures from the type. The gallery sense came afterwards.
Is artwork countable?
Both. One artwork, several artworks in the gallery sense; uncountable when it means the visual material of a job.
What does camera-ready artwork mean?
An older printing term for images finished to the point where they can be photographed for plates without further work.