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.

Artwork

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Hunk, Moo Anderson give modern art masterpieces to Stanford

…rst 15 years together were consumed with the business and parenthood. In 1962, Saga partners decided to relocate company headquarters to Menlo Park. By the time the Andersons moved from Oberlin, Ohio, Saga Foods – as the company came to be called – served 136 institutions and was a financial success. When the Andersons discovered their passion for collecting in 1964, they started with French and American Impressionists – Claude…

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The Anderson Collection at Stanford: An Uplifting Experience

…ed up by this great public display. There is so much to be said about what the gift of this collection will mean for Stanford, for California art and for the public, but I am going to keep it brief here and make just one more point: This collection was put together by a family that has a genuine passion for art. You can see it in the photo of Moo above as she showed up in her sneakers to watch a work being installed, and you could hear it in the…

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The Magic of The Anderson Collection

…eeling as if they were sending their children to college. Museum Makes Art Friendly A special museum was needed for this collection. Stanford hired Richard Olcott of Ennead Architects, whose firm designed Stanford Bing Concert Hall. The architects took their inspiration from the Andersons’ home – a classic postwar California ranch house comprised of a series of interconnected rooms. “We sought to reflect the intimacy and inform…

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Up Close: One Painting Tours With Artists

A project of the Anderson Collection at Stanford University Hosted by art historian and the associate director of ITALIC at Stanford, Kim Beil, the micro-video series “Up Close: One Painting Tours with Artists” focuses on a single object in the Anderson Collection, sparking dialogue with a guest artist. This project is made possible by a grant from Stanford Arts and the Anderson Collection at Stanford University. Artist Rebekah Goldstein explor…

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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…

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Creations of Space and Light

…2. The garden opened to the public along with the Getty Center in 1997. Irwin is gaining international attention for his massive, $5 million project on the grounds of the Chinati Foundation, the mecca of large-scale works in Marfa, Texas, founded by the sculptor Donald Judd. After more than a decade of planning, Irwin’s 10,000-square-foot structure, on the site of a derelict Army hospital, is slated for completion later this year. According…

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“Reaching Towards Warmer Suns”: A Q&A with artist Kiyan Williams ’13

…thinking about the world as not just human-centric. The world is expansive and includes plant life, flora, other forms of life. And so I often find inspiration from just acknowledging and thinking about the world as an ecosystem of interdependent relationships between humans and non-human life. In thinking about the sort of larger ecosystem we live in, I look toward relationships between people, and bees, and plants — for that particular piece I…

Hostile Terrain 94
Exhibition

Hostile Terrain 94

Exhibition

Eamon Ore-Giron: Non Plus Ultra

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

…rectly to an encounter with Clyfford Still’s “1957-J No.1.” The work is an interesting choice for such a focal point; large in scale, with 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 &…

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Anderson Collection at Stanford solidifies Bay Area’s art stature

…important private collections. The long-anticipated institution, adjacent to the Cantor Arts Center, features a formidable cache of modern and contemporary art and certifies the Bay Area’s growing international stature as a destination for lovers and scholars of 20th and 21st century visual arts. The new museum tracks half a century’s effort – stunningly successful – at self-education in art by Peninsula collectors Harry…

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

On September 21, the Anderson 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:…

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

…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 Family Collection: The de Young Mus…

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A&E Digest

A&E Digest: Student scholarships, fashion for a cause and more This week’s A&E news by Elizabeth Schwyzer / Palo Alto Weekly 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…

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Anderson Collection a modern art trove not to be missed

…um highlights Jason Linetzky, the Anderson Collection’s founding director, recommends allotting about 90 minutes for a visit. Here are just a handful of the museum’s highlights: “Jackson Pollock’s ‘Lucifer’ is something that people come to see. It previously hung over Putter’s bed, before moving to the dining room and before coming here.” “There’s an incredible Mark Rothko (‘Pink and White Over Red’) that’s just beautiful — a seductive red painti…

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Fashion statements: Nick Cave’s Soundsuits come to Stanford

…om every previous owner, which he assembles into his Soundsuits. In that way, it can be said that Soundsuits are formed from memories. The Chicago artist’s creations are part sculpture and ornament, armor and instrument and are often worn as costumes and performed in. The energetic vibration of each single, insignificant article is magnified by how Cave chooses to bind them together. Each found object is transformed through the combination…

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A new lust for art takes hold in Silicon Valley

…o Alto, would make sense to add to that list. But not so, says Glimcher. “There was no significant presence by a commercial gallery in Silicon Valley,” he explains. “When an amazing thing comes on the market, (art collectors in the area) can’t always get on a plane and go to New York to see them. So now that really amazing thing will come to them.” And there is certainly evidence of an increasing appetite for contemporary and modern art in the su…

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

…alize the two permanent collection works (dated 1962 and 1977)?” When asked if he thought it was important for viewers to make a connection between the art on paper and those pieces hung in the permanent galleries, Linetzky responded, “Yes, for example, I hope visitors see the early Rothko drawing and relate it to his later, mature paintings.” As indicated by the title, the exhibition is hung in the “salon style,” wh…

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

…Mary Patricia Anderson Pence (“Putter”) could have led post-World War Two lives of suburban white privilege and comfort – thanks to the financial success of the Saga food service company Hunk co-founded that supplied many colleges (including Stanford) and for which they moved from the East Coast to the West. However, in the early 1960s, before their daughter was born, the Andersons traveled to Paris and had a life-changing visit to the Louvre….