…orschach inkblot, a large chaotic dark shape on a white background. Like Rorshcach, who asked people to tell him what they were seeing in his famous inkblots, I questioned how to interpret this painting and thought about what was going on in the artist’s mind. Was he going through a chaotic period in his life? Is it fear he is trying to draw? Anger? I went up to read the description of “Figure 8” by Franz Kline, and learned that he was capturing…

…ts, on the Stanford campus. “They consider themselves custodians of the work they collect,” says Jason Linetzky, the director of the Anderson Collection at Stanford. But, he adds, “they’re very down-to-earth and casual about how they live with the art.” A Renoir was moved from Putter’s room to make way for the Pollock. In the living room, Sam Francis’s 1955 Red in Red has pride of place above the fireplace; over the sofa isNumber  64, a 1958 wo…

…opening on Sept. 21 of the collection of Harry and Mary Margaret Anderson at Stanford — even from afar. In 2011, the couple donated 1 21 works of contemporary art, filled with paintings by the likes of Pollock, Diebenkorn, Rothko Elsworth Kelly, de Kooning, Joan Mitchell (Begin Again IV at left), and Elizabeth Murray, to name a few, to Stanford on the condition that it build galleries to house them. Stanford is offering timed tickets, starting in…

…Woman Standing – Pink” (1954-55), a lush, pastel-toned oil of a voluptuous nude who looks like she’s in the clutches of a garbage compactor. The art is organized loosely into about a dozen sections, such as Dumb Objects, California Funk, Geometric Abstraction, (the distinctly L.A.) Light & Space/Finish Fetish and The Shaped Canvas. The latter is where Frank Stella’s elephantine “Zeltweg” (1981) doesn’t so m…

…rd unveiled a 33,500-square-foot building to house the Anderson Collection, 121 contemporary artworks donated by the Andersons, including major artwork by Jackson Pollock, Richard Diebenkorn and Ellsworth Kelly, among others. The couple married in 1950. During an around-the-world trip in 1964, they were overwhelmed by the Impressionist art on view in Paris. “On the way home, we may have had a glass of wine too much, but we decided to put to…

…the Faculty Senate on Thursday. Holding its Feb. 5 meeting at the Anderson Collection at Stanford University, the Faculty Senate gave members the opportunity to visit the newest addition to the university’s growing arts district and to take guided tours of the galleries. “I hope one thing that gets accomplished this afternoon is that you have the chance to see – for those of you who don’t spend time in this area – just how mu…

…of the museum was a great aspect of the course. The clinical portion of the course drew Cartmell, but so too did the opportunity to see the treasures in the Cantor Center and the Anderson Collection. Two of those treasures, Lucifer (1947), by Jackson Pollock, and Red in Red (1955), by Sam Francis, in the Anderson collection, made Cartmell see how works of art “can be made up of numerous small elements, coming together to form a larger image, much…

…s, visited museums and galleries, and developed relationships with collectors, curators, gallerists and dealers. Their passion led to what Linetzky describes as a “spectacular” trove devoted to postwar American art. “Some of the works that we have are on par with the objects at other great museums, but the intimacy here is fairly unique,” he says. Anh-Minh Le is a Portola Valley freelancer. E-mail: travel@sfchronicle.com Museum highlights Jason L…

…three shows of the Anderson art over the years, and along the way 55 of their works have been donated to SFMOMA, including paintings by Lichtenstein, Johns, Stella, Warhol and Rauschenberg. “Hunk and Moo have been two of the most important donors to the collection in our museum’s long history,” said Neal Benezra, director of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. “The museum collection would simply not be what it is without their profound genero…

…ion to and in response to the trees around them. In the grove at Anderson, they’re installed within a grove with the circle of trees around them, and they kind of mirror the shape of those trees. TSD: What impact do you hope your “Reaching Towards Warmer Suns” piece will leave on viewers? KW: One of the great things about being an artist and creating art for the public and for a wide range of people is that I love how different people interpret…

By Robin Wander Wendy Red Star: American Progress on view at the Anderson Collection at Stanford University is a solo exhibition of works by the artist Wendy Red Star, who was raised on the Apsáalooke (Crow) reservation in Montana. With historical research, Stanford student collaborations, large-scale installations, and images of sovereignty, Red Star asks viewers to grapple with the layered complexity of American history. On view on the first…

…hat interested Red Star. Whose land? And so she used “their land” to name the piece. I told Red Star how impressed I was about the high concentration of flags especially in the Western states. “It’s Manifest Destiny,” she replied. Red Star later told me instead that she had been “pleasantly surprised in a horrible way” when she first realized how many tribes existed in the East. Ultimately, that is what T…

A new solo exhibition of works by Sam Francis at the Anderson Collection celebrates the hundredth anniversary of the artist’s birth and highlights his multifaceted connection to the Palo Alto community and the Anderson family. On view through March 3, 2024, this intimate presentation of works in the Wisch Family Gallery is anchored by two large-scale paintings from the museum’s permanent collection, Red in Red (1955), an early work created while…