Welcome to the Anderson Collection
Stanford University's free museum of modern and contemporary American art

Open Wed - Sun

11 a.m. – 5 p.m.

Advance reservations not required.
Click here for group visits.

News

Hunk, Moo Anderson give modern art masterpieces to Stanford

…n. The museum excursion lasted only half a day, but it turned into a lifetime of collecting art. Fifty years and about 2,000 acquisitions later, “Hunk” and “Moo” Anderson – who made their fortune in the food service business – enjoy the sort of monosyllabic recognition in the American art scene that Sting, Cher and Prince command in pop culture. Kirk McGuire Sculpture kirkmcguire.com Amazing Bronze Sculptures &…

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Creations of Space and Light

…of perception as the fundamental issue of art has expanded ideas of what art can be and can do. Irwin will speak about his work on March 10 at Stanford’s Cemex Auditorium. Irwin, born in 1928, in Long Beach, started as a painter in the 1950s with an abstract expressionist style, but quickly began removing all that was not essential. This resulted in his minimal “line paintings” and then canvases filled with fields of subtle grad…

Hostile Terrain 94
Exhibition

Hostile Terrain 94

Exhibition

Eamon Ore-Giron: Non Plus Ultra

News

Stanford unveils the Anderson Collection: New museum dedicated to renowned works of American art

…g is by now the stuff of legend: After a trip to Europe in the 1960s, Hunk and Moo decided to educate themselves about art in order to build a collection. They sought out the best examples by the most noteworthy artists available, and had the good fortune — and foresight — to purchase stellar works by artists working in the Abstract Expressionist movement before prices became prohibitive. Their collection grew, filled their ranch hous…

News

Anderson Collection at Stanford solidifies Bay Area’s art stature

…oward its center, like a huge canopy. This structure permits a clerestory of frosted windows to enfold the space completely, letting in a computer-modulated mix of daylight and artificial light. The clerestory makes light seem to buoy the ceiling. The opening collection display is clustered according to the Andersons’ multiple interests – in California art, including experimental materials, Bay Area Figuration and Funk, and abstract e…

News

The Anderson Collection at Stanford: An Uplifting Experience

…ree Oliveiras, two terrific Paul Wonners and a great David Park. Elmer Bischoff and Joan Brown are conspicuously absent, but you can see their work — and two more fine Diebenkorn canvases — at the Cantor Arts Center next door. Add to that two Lobdell abstractions, terrific paintings by Christopher Brown and Squeak Carnwath and you will have some idea of how strong the presence of California painting is at the Anderson Collection. The…

News

The Magic of The Anderson Collection

Pollock’s Lucifer now resides at Stanford University and is welcoming visitors. The news is of significance to everyone for reasons described in this article. Lucifer, the crown jewel of the Anderson Collection, moved to Stanford with a retinue of 120 colorful accomplices he’s befriended while living at the Andersons’ residence. The whole gang is now happily installed in a custom-designed museum on the Stanford campus. With ro…

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A New Museum for Stanford—and a New Neighbor for Us!

…Collection building opened at the Palo Alto campus of Stanford University—our frequent partner-in-crime when it comes to celebrating the West. Designed by the same team that created Stanford’s stellar Bing Concert Hall, the structure houses 121 works of modern and contemporary American art, all donated by Harry W. and Mary Margaret Anderson. Of course, we’re most excited about the pieces that have a Western flavor: three lovely Diebenkorns, a Th…

News

Top 10 art shows as rising rents force out S.F. artists

…estra: A humbly entertaining group show, easily overlooked within a dreary but clamorous local art economy, this commemorative event reopened a souful, nonprofit mainstay of the Dogpatch neighborhood shuttered two years earlier by the death of its founder, Bruno Mauro. The Plot Thickens: Fraenkel Gallery’s 35th anniversary show (through Jan. 31) honors the gallery’s outstanding success, but crucially it also celebrates looking, not commerce, as t…

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A&E Digest

…y Twenty-seven student artists from Santa Clara and San Mateo counties have been awarded scholarships for by the Community School of Music and Arts. Photo courtesy of CSMA. This week, students win art scholarships, a film on feminist art screens at Stanford and international fashion designers sell their goods for a good cause. SCHOLARSHIPS FOR STUDENTS … The Mountain View-based arts nonprofit, Community School of Music and Arts (CSMA), has…

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Anderson Collection a modern art trove not to be missed

About twice a month, Mary Margaret Anderson pays a visit to the museum on the Stanford campus that bears her last name. Moo, as she is better known, usually chats with the staff before declaring, “I’m off to see my friends.” Those friends are the more than 100 works of art, including paintings and sculptures, that she and her husband, Harry (“Hunk”), along with their daughter, Mary Patricia (“Putter”) Anderson Pence, gave to the university sever…

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Fashion statements: Nick Cave’s Soundsuits come to Stanford

…ht-provoking and challenging suits are constructed in ways that refuse to reveal gender, age or race. They offer complete anonymity. To imagine yourself in them is to turn the collective sharing of memories into a personal epiphany. The Anderson exhibit includes eight Soundsuits, three video works and a recently completed documentary about Nick Cave titled “Here.” There also is an interactive felt wall where visitors to the gallery ca…

News

A new lust for art takes hold in Silicon Valley

…ferent areas,” he says. For three days, May 24-26, New York-based Hope Gangloff — the first Diekman Contemporary Commissions Program artist — will be intermittently painting large-scale portraits in the Cantor’s atrium. Gangloff’s completed works will be on view through April 2018. Across the street from the Cantor and Anderson is Andy Goldsworthy’s “Stone River.” The 320-foot sculpture is made of sandstone from university buildings that were cas…

News

Getting it down on paper: A different aspect of the Anderson Collection on view

…t the top of the steps. On the other hand, Ad Rhinehart’s “Untitled”, a gouache on paper, is a complete surprise. Unlike “Abstract Painting, 1966,” which consists of subtle gradations of black tones, the work on paper is an abstract composition featuring eye-popping strokes of bright red and blue. Sam Francis used his signature splashes of primary colors to embellish the almost childlike depiction of himself. Convers…

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The Museum of Hunk, Moo & Putter: The Anderson Collection at Stanford will Rock You

Tom Teicholz Contributor Arts I write about culture and the cult of luxury On a recent trip to San Francisco, I decided to make a short detour to the Anderson Collection at Stanford University (easily reachable by public transport from San Francisco or from the airport) – it is very much worth the trip. The Anderson Collection is very much focused on American Art of the 20thCentury in general, with a specific concentration on West Coast…

News

Mary Margaret ‘Moo’ Anderson, modern art collector and benefactor, dead at 92

…on Collection at Stanford University, a museum showing the core of their collection. No cause was given. She was 92. The Andersons liked to portray themselves as plain folk to befit their shared nickname “Hunk and Moo,” but they were sophisticated and timely in their collecting of artworks that were often abstract and beyond comprehension. They were also generous in both loaning and donating pieces to the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and th…

News

Works by Pollock, de Kooning donated to Stanford’s Anderson Collection

…intings were last shown in the Bay Area during the survey “Celebrating Modern Art: The Anderson Collection” from 2000 to 2001 at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. “These are two of the most coveted works by these influential artists still in private hands,” said Jason Linetzky, director of the Anderson Collection. “They were really the leaders of the Abstract Expressionists in New York.” The announcement comes less than a week after the dea…

News

Up Close: One Painting Tours With Artists

…hout the United States and Europe. She has recently been featured in group exhibitions at the San Francisco Arts Commission, Contemporary Jewish Museum (San Francisco), and Parts & Labor (Beacon). Semo had three gallery solo shows in 2019: one at Marlborough Contemporary (New York) in January, one at Jessica Silverman Gallery (San Francisco) in March, and one at Ribordy Thetaz (Geneva) in November. She opened her first solo museum exhibition…

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The Cantor and Anderson Collection offer free membership to Class of 2020

The Cantor and Anderson Collection offer free membership to Class of 2020…