…8221; Moo said promptly, referring to painter Barnett Newman, whose sudden death in 1970 curtailed his output of large color-field abstractions. “We never found one we wanted that we could afford, and when we finally found one we wanted, we couldn’t afford it.” The Andersons’ gift to Stanford of a mere 121 works may not sound like much, but museum directors around the region and the nation have long salivated at the prospe…

…on makes the Stanford campus a genuine arts destination. “Overnight,” says Christopher Knight of the LA Times, “the Anderson Collection catapults Stanford into the top tier of American university museum art collections.” Knight has that right, but I don’t agree with his assessment of the Richard Olcott designed building which he dinged as “rather dull.” I found the second floor galleries — lit from…

…eries of interconnected rooms. “We sought to reflect the intimacy and informality with which the Andersons lived with art”, shared Olcott. From the exterior, the Anderson looks like another beautiful building on campus, blending courteously with its neighbors without haughtiness. I like that the fact that the outer-shell is understated, projecting a sense of humility and deference to the art it encloses. Once inside though, one is in…

…and its traditions through the intersections of gender, race, and ethnic identities. Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally at Aberystwyth Arts Centre, Aberystwyth, UK; Pier 24 Photography, San Francisco, CA; Berkeley Art Museum, Berkeley, CA, and New Orleans Museum of Art, New Orleans, LA to name a few. Permanent collections include: Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, Berkeley, CA; Museum of Contemporary Photograph…

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

… focuses on temporary interventions online and in the urban environment. The list of participating artists — too lengthy to mention here — is an impressive one, including off-site commissions by Constance Hockaday and Jenifer K. Wofford. The exhibition spans media and generations, documenting the important projects that occupy space in the world, merging politics and social commentary with everyday life. Jenny Odell, ‘ITEM 048: bicentennial Sev…

…pends on impeccable installation: precise color of the gallery wall and exact placement of four spotlights. When properly displayed, the disk is otherworldly. It appears to be floating. The disk blends with its shadows, which in turn seem to take on substance and merge with the disk. Prolonged gazing can make a viewer feel that he or she is levitating along with the work. Advertisement One work in this series commands its own wall at the Anderson…

…h only three colors of paint (red, black, white) applied thickly with a palette knife. Its jagged forms and bold composition are confrontational and somewhat unsettling. Look to the left, however, and the eye takes in the cheerful swirls and bright pastels that comprise Joan Mitchell’s “Before, Again IV.” Gaze right, and Richard Diebenkorn’s evocative seascape, “Ocean Park #60,” immediately produces a sense of…

…nt gift of 121 pieces to the university. Soon after you enter the campus building, a striking illusion occurs. A long staircase – its gentle slope making for a comfortable ascent – leads the eye directly upward to Still’s “1957-J No. 1,” a 12-foot-long abstract painting that appears expansive as a movie screen. The building’s designer, Richard Olcott of Ennead Architects, has made the stairway taper as it rises…

…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…

…f the art of figures we thought we knew too well. Carleton Watkins: The Stanford Albums: The Stanford University Libraries presented to the public for the first time at the Cantor Arts Center the full riches of albums they received decades ago in which the luckless but relentless Carleton Watkins recorded the prising open of the American West by alien forces both commercial and cultural. Lines on the Horizon: Native American Art From the Weisel F…

…ers sell their goods for a good cause. SCHOLARSHIPS FOR STUDENTS … The Mountain View-based arts nonprofit, Community School of Music and Arts (CSMA), has announced the names of 27 students who have been awarded scholarships for the continued study of visual art. The students, who range from first to eighth grade, come from Santa Clara and San Mateo County Schools, and were nominated by their classroom teachers based on their talent, hard wo…

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…

…cative Soundsuits will be on exhibit at the Anderson Collection at Stanford University through Aug. 14, 2017, on loan from the Anderson family, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and private collectors. Cave, who now the director of the graduate fashion program at the School of the Art Institute in Chicago, may not have had the words to describe the latent potency of abandoned objects as a child in Missouri. It is possible, however, the idea…

…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…

…rd Diebenkorn, William Baziotes, Sam Francis, Helen Frankenthaler, Philip Guston, Arshile Gorky and Mark Rothko. Linetzky said that many of the paper pieces were created earlier than paintings found upstairs in the permanent collection. “These works give visitors a sense of where the artist came from and help to contextualize (i.e,, Guston) or provide a deeper look (i.e., Diebenkorn). In the case of Guston, where else can you find a 30-year…

…s in art exhibition and museums. Collectors who have spent decades assembling their collections and have enjoyed living with the art in certain combinations, want to share that experience. To them the paintings are part of a narrative, perhaps belonging to the art, perhaps just their own. Regardless of their background, or the depth or breadth of their collection, they have a fundamental belief in art history, in a historical progression of work…