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

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11 a.m. – 5 p.m.

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News

Instead of Changing Leaves, Peep Eight Bay Area Art Shows this Fall

Fall, a season experienced in other climates as crisp weather, woolly sweaters, crunchy leaves and autumnally-appropriate spiced drinks. Here in the Bay Area, September is much the same as August, except with more exciting visual art events on the calendar and a slight spike in temperatures. Don’t know where to start for a healthy dose of excellent art? Here are eight suggestions for not-to-miss exhibitions, installations, public art projects an…

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‘Formed & Fired: Contemporary American Ceramics’ at the Anderson Collection breaks the mold

…came to the forefront this year. I can’t help but want to be in the galleries to look at his work really closely in response. In addition, his use of news clippings illustrates this moment of reckoning in our country. “Not to mention that views on the tactile have changed so much in the last six months,” Shapiro continued. “The handmade is more meaningful now – and perhaps is even more so when you consider how purposeful these artists utilize for…

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Stanford’s Anderson Collection museum to feature trove of couple’s art

…rhol and others were donated to the museum in 1992 and seven Frank Stella paintings from 1959 to 1988 were given in 2001. Much of their collection was shown at the museum in 2000, in “Celebrating Modern Art: The Anderson Collection.” (They also collected prints and gave more than 650 to San Francisco’s Fine Arts Museums in 1996, which transferred them to the De Young.) However, what the Andersons call their “core collectio…

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The Do List: Cy and David’s Picks

…e giant, glittery sock pockets decorated with beads, buttons, sequins, and human hair. Sometimes he puts dancers in the suits (Cave trained with Alvin Ailey) and calls it performance art. Whatever  you call it, it’s very cool stuff and very worth a visit to Stanford. Both the Anderson Collection and the Cantor are always free, so it’s one of our Cheap Thrills this week.   Sept 16 & 17: Angelica’s in Redwood City is a kind of throwback, a…

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Harry W. “Hunk” Anderson dies at 95

…sity. (Image credit: L.A. Cicero) The Andersons began collecting art in the mid-1960s after a trip to the Louvre in Paris, where they admired works of the French Impressionists. They initially collected work by Early Modernists, such as Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse, the German Expressionists, such as Emile Nolde, and the Early American Modernists, such as Georgia O’Keeffe, Marsden Hartley and Arthur Dove. By 1969, however, the Andersons made t…

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Anderson Collection at Stanford University announces the acquisition of two major works by Pollock, de Kooning

…has done it before.” The newest acquisitions are now on view and are accessible to the public for the first time in years; the most recent exhibition of both pieces in the Bay Area was in January 2001. They hang near Franz Kline’s Figure 8 (1952) and adjacent to Left of Center, a student-curated reinstallation of the museum’s permanent collection that explores how geographic location – in this case, the West Coast – can play a role in engendering…

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How to find love at the Anderson Collection

…k, the Anderson Collection at Stanford University opened its doors for the first time. The Andersons didn’t know much about art at first, but they suffered something of a coup de foudre at the Louvre in 1964. Since then, Hunk, Moo and Putter have devoted themselves to the art of art appreciation, partly by seeking advice from local artists. Perhaps this is why much of the collection is focused “close to home.” Works by Richard Diebenkorn, Paul Wo…

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A Dorm-Food Fortune Has Funded the Best New Museum in Silicon Valley

…erly Hills or Greenwich, but that may be changing.) I remember being fascinated by the way the collection, which includes pretty much all the brand names of the 50s, 60s, and 70s, felt almost wedged into the house, with masterpieces seemingly elbow to elbow in big rooms, and large canvases lining the hallways. As a teenager, Putter had a Pollock drip painting in her bedroom; any slumber-party guests must have been very careful with their Cokes an…

Museums by Moonlight

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The Magic of The Anderson Collection

…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 room to spread and a loving staff, they…

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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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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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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

…ns. Each item he finds holds a story — the energetic imprint from 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 the…

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

…ts. It is said that she initiated the practice of pouring thinned-down oil paint onto unprimed canvas, resulting in a fusion of surface and color (which later would be called “color-field painting”). Her “Monotype VII” has the same energetic feeling as “Approach” upstairs. In the painting, the staining is applied sparingly, so as to create more perspective space. The monotype, however, is a joyous expanse of co…

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Anderson Collection at Stanford marks fifth anniversary

…llock, Mark Rothko, Wayne Thiebaud and Richard Diebenkorn. The challenge to this and other single-donor museums, however, is how to keep the momentum going once visitors have seen the permanent collection. “The collection is not fixed to the initial gift (121 pieces). It has grown, and our hope is that, in a very thoughtful way, the collection will continue to grow,” Executive Director Jason Linetzky said. “We are always trying…

Exhibition

Manuel Neri: Assertion of the Figure

The Catalogues