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.

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The Anderson Collection at Stanford: An Uplifting Experience

…g’s dedication on September 18, Stanford’s President John Hennessy praised the Anderson’s gift of 121 works by 86 artists as a “gift for the generations” and also noted with great pride that the Anderson would play a key role in the remarkable and ongoing “Stanford Arts Initiative.” If you think Stanford is just a tech-incubator with a football stadium, think again: the opening of the Anderson makes the S…

How the Stanford Arts District grew from a midair inspiration

Self-Guided Tours Developed by Stanford Students

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Hunk, Moo Anderson give modern art masterpieces to Stanford

…on in Geneva, and Hunk introduced me as Murma Ransford, which is what my parents called me. And a guy at the end of the bar said, ‘Moo Moo? What a funny name.’ So we shortened it to Moo.” During his senior year in college, Hunk and two close friends (who would become his lifelong business partners) sold Hobart College on the idea of providing its meals for students not living in fraternity houses, a service that was costing the…

On Elite Campuses, an Arts Race

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Hot Art Bling the New Thing on the Peninsula

…’s one of the artists who’s benefited from Palo Alto’s city-sponsored, affordable studio space. (Photo: Courtesy of Michal Gavish) “Artists and arts groups can be considered here an endangered species,” says Rhyena Halpern, who oversees the city’s public investment in the arts as assistant director of Palo Alto’s Community Services Department. “Because the cost of living is so high, and the cost of doing business is so high.” But the very same e…

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Harry W. “Hunk” Anderson dies at 95

…urrounded by his family. He was 95. Harry W. “Hunk” Anderson(Image credit: L.A. Cicero) Anderson was the founder of the food service company Saga Corporation and, with his wife, Mary Margaret “Moo,” and daughter, Mary Patricia “Putter,” a devoted art collector. In 2011, Stanford announced that it would become home to the core of the Anderson Collection, one of the most outstanding private collections of 20th-century American art in the world. The…

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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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Up Close: One Painting Tours With Artists

…s and Postcard (Zurbarán) Marcela Pardo Ariza is a visual artist and curator that explores transhistorical and intergenerational kinship, alternate forms of representation while celebrating the erroneous through constructed photography, prop-like objects and handmade bending frames and installations. Ariza is the recipient of the Tosa Studio Award 2017, a Murphy & Cadogan Contemporary Art Award and an Alternative Exposure grantee (2018). Ar…

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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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A private art collection becomes a Stanford collection on Sunday, Sept. 21

…ding exclusively for the collection within the expanding arts district, and over the summer the collection moved in. The building is adjacent to Cantor Arts Center and the planned McMurtry Building for the Department of Art and Art History (opening in 2015), and across Palm Drive from Bing Concert Hall. Total cost for construction of the building for the Anderson Collection is $36 million. The addition of this remarkable collection on campus help…

Construction on Anderson Collection art museum begins

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Anderson Collection pieces lock in a home at Stanford

…in New York, where he co-founded a company to manage the school’s cafeteria. He then came West to establish Saga in Menlo Park, a national company distributing dorm food to college campuses across the United States. Museums far and wide courted the Andersons, but, logically, the art collection paid for by college cafeteria food belongs on a college campus. The deal, struck in 2011, was that Stanford would supply a new building, at a cost of $36 m…

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

by Sheryl Nonnenberg / Palo Alto Weekly “How did they fit all this art in their house?” That was the question of the day at the media preview for Stanford’s new Anderson Collection, which opens to the public with a grand celebration this Sunday, September 21. Being surrounded by museum-quality works by artists including Mark Rothko, Jackson Pollock and Richard Diebenkorn was a way of life for collectors Harry W. and Mary Marga…

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Palette Cleanser: A new campus museum quietly serves up a visual banquet

…s museum quietly serves up a visual banquet. By Lydia Lee It’s tempting for designers to try to turn art museums into works of art themselves. But what if the client’s directive is just the opposite? A new campus museum in the Bay Area by the New York–based firm Ennead Architects may disappoint those hoping for a bigger architectural statement. However, as designed to house the 121 works of the Anderson Collection, a choice selection of postwar A…

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Fashion statements: Nick Cave’s Soundsuits come to Stanford

by Mimm Patterson / Palo Alto Weekly >An exhibition of works by Nick Cave at the Anderson Collection features a number of his Soundsuits,full-body-sized sculptures that are sometimes worn as costumes and performed in. They conceal the wearers’ identity to leave no indication of race, gender or age. Photo by James Prinz Photography. The stuff we hold on to, those things we collect — dried flowers from our senior prom, the cassette mi…