Harry W. and Mary Margaret Anderson didn’t know much about art – they’d dabbled in antiques – before they first visited Paris in 1964 and made their way into the Louvre. “We became so enamored with the visual experience that on the way home, we looked at each other and said, ‘How could all this have been going on and we not have been a part of it?’ ” said Harry “Hunk” Anderson. The muse…

by Carol Strickland The Anderson Collection at Stanford University, designed by Richard Olcott of Ennead Architects. Photo Tim Griffith.  ADVERTISEMENT Stanford University, a hub of innovative entrepreneurship in Silicon Valley and the origin of the “sharing economy” (think Uber and Airbnb), is now home to a magnificent example of art sharing. The Anderson Collection, a new museum that is part of Stanford’s pu…

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…

When Allison and Dan Rose moved into their historic Palo Alto home, their art was essentially limited to Pottery Barn and Z Gallerie buys. It was interior designer Jon de la Cruz who suggested the couple consider elevating their acquisitions. Four years later, the walls of their 1905 Craftsman are decorated with contemporary works from the likes of John Chiara, Gabriel Orozco, Ed Ruscha, Richard Serra and Hiroshi Sugimoto. “We started buying a…

The Anderson Collection at Stanford: An Uplifting Experience Posted: 09/24/2014 2:51 pm EDT  Updated: 2 hours ago Visiting the newly-opened Anderson Collection at Stanford requires taking everything — your body and your expectations — up a level. After entering the building’s main lobby — which will cost you nothing as the Anderson is free — you will ascend a grand staircase that plateaus at the building&#8217…

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…

Lately, I have been feeling like a Sally Rooney character: a little lost, a little gloomy, a little unsure about the decisions I have been making. So, I went to the Anderson Collection on a Saturday morning by myself, because museums have a calming effect on me. I needed to find my center again. As I entered the Anderson Collection, I climbed up the stairs to reach the permanent collection. I was in the middle of a room surrounded by large canv…

Along a shady road here, you can glimpse large estates behind gates and hedges bought with fortunes earned in Silicon Valley. Then you come to the driveway of a ranch house that stands pretty much as it was when built in the 1960s by Harry and Mary Margaret Anderson. From the unpretentious exterior, few would guess that inside the house a single painting in their collection is worth as much as one or even two of those neighboring estates. This…

When Harry W. “Hunk” and Mary Margaret “Moo” Anderson bought “Lucifer” — one of Jackson Pollock’s prized action paintings and the latest addition to the family’s private art collection — they hung it over their daughter’s bed. Mary Patricia “Putter” Anderson grew up like most girls, hosting slumber  parties and fighting the temptation to give Pollock’s painting new “drips.” This privilege — to learn and live among masterpieces — is yours now. In…