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.

Self-Guided Tours Developed by Stanford Students

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The Magic of The Anderson Collection

…e of humility and deference to the art it encloses. Once inside though, one is in for a treat. And a treat it is indeed! Slow stairs take visitors to the first floor where the art resides. There is no art on the stair walls. “It gives visitors a chance to cleanse their mind”, explains Olcott. As we walk up the stairs, an oversized and inviting Clyfford Still pulls our eyes up, giving the ascent an aura of mystery. Once at the top of t…

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Up Close: One Painting Tours With Artists

…She opened her first solo museum exhibition at the di Rosa Museum (Napa) in February 2020. Semo lives and works in San Francisco. Discover more of her work http://davinasemo.net. You can also follow her on Instagram. Artist Erica Deeman explores Jennifer Bartlett’s At The Lake, Morning Erica Deeman is a visual artist living and working in San Francisco, CA. Originally from the U.K., she has lived in the States for just over 8 years. Dee…

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Anderson Collection’s 10 must-see works at Stanford

Not to be missed at the Anderson Collection (in no particular order): 1. Richard Diebenkorn: “Berkeley No. 26,” 1954. 2. Frank Stella: “Zeltweg,” 1981. 3. Ellsworth Kelly: “Black Ripe,” 1955. 4. David Park: “Four Women,” 1959 (on the cover). 5. Jackson Pollock: “Lucifer,” 1947. 6. Morris Louis: “Number 64,” 1958. 7. Wayne Thiebaud: “Candy Counter,” 1962. 8. Mark Rothko: “Pink and White Over Red,” 1957. 9. Vija Celmins: “Barrier,” 1986. 10. Phili…

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Manuel Neri’s Chromatic Chaos

…he preferred working with it.. “It’s a blah material,” he philosophized, “a dumb material. It doesn’t dictate to you at all. You can do anything you want to with it, practically, from a polished, glass-like finish to a rough, broken surface.” At $3 per bag, which Neri could only sometimes afford, plaster was also a forgiving material that allowed mistakes and improvisation: a poor man’s marble that could be hacked into submission. There is a cert…

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Anderson Collection pieces lock in a home at Stanford

…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 million, to be run independently of the neighboring Cantor Arts Center. The Andersons…

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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

Getting it down on paper A different aspect of the Anderson Collection on view by Sheryl Nonnenberg / Palo Alto Weekly Philip Guston’s untitled ink-on-paper work is featured at Anderson Collection’s latest exhibition. Image courtesy of Anderson Collection. Visitors to the Anderson Collection at Stanford University can experience a wide range of art movements (virtually every major development after 1945) and media. The museum…

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Anderson Collection at Stanford University to be displayed in an elegant new home

…McMurtry building for the Department of Art and Art History. Renderings for that project are anticipated before the end of the month. “The building for the Anderson Collection at Stanford University and the McMurtry building are magnificent, much-needed additions to this campus,” said Leslie Hume, chair of the Board of Trustees, in December. “Like the Cantor Arts Center and Bing Concert Hall, they make tangible Stanford’s…

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Anderson Collection has a new home

…bed and a couch facing across the space to the only light source: a door, stage right, cracked open just a hair. In the corner of the gallery is Manuel Neri’s “Untitled Standing Figure” (1982), a white plaster sculpture of a female half-swathed in marine blue, as if it had been transported out of the studio before it was ready. On the opposite side of the gallery, a pair of large and loud Lobdell canvases vies for attention; lik…

Stanford trustees visit new art collection, approve construction

Fine Arts Feast

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The Anderson Collection at Stanford University is a feast with all the trimmings

…n Pollock’s Lucifer and Willem de Kooning’s Woman Standing – Pink, among others, is that one could enjoy a feast in the room without ever having a meal, thanks to the rich visual display. The feast proved moveable and equally rich when the paintings were relocated to the campus over the summer and served to the Stanford community and the public in a series of courses over the last week. Opening week of the Anderson Collection at Stanford Universi…

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‘The Anderson Collection’ opens at Stanford

…keep on giving. Students for generations will take advantage of this assemblage of iconic modern pieces. Again, the open-air, naturally-lit environs drive home the idea, at least for me, that this is a collection accessible to anyone. There are no crazy, over-the-top experimental pieces. You don’t need to be schooled in stuffy academic artspeak. You can be as Luciferian as you want. And it’s free. Just bring money for parking. With R…

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Happy 100th Birthday, Wayne Thiebaud!

…or candy store. Through his brushwork, Thiebaud conveys the tactile duality of his subject. He virtually frosts the surface of the canvas with paint to suggest the rippling of fudge or the shiny stickiness of caramel. Isolated in a cold, ambiguous environment, the various sweets become a means for formal exploration and finally works of art in themselves, displayed in a glass case. Explore Candy Counter, part of the Anderson Collection at Stanf…

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Harry W. “Hunk” Anderson dies at 95

…vived by his wife, Mary Margaret “Moo” Anderson; daughter, Mary Patricia “Putter” Anderson Pence, an art advisor in Los Angeles; and granddaughter Devin Pence, a first-year student at Stanford Graduate School of Business. The family plans to have a private burial but looks forward to hosting a celebration of Hunk’s life in the spring. In lieu of flowers, please make a donation to the Anderson Collection at Stanford University online. Checks can a…

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

…nd 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 and Cheetos. (The San Francisco Chronicle estimates the painting, Lucifer, might fetch as much as $100 million at auction.) Maybe because I was…

Museums by Moonlight

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Ceremonial turning of the soil delights the Anderson family and guests

Earlier this week, at a groundbreaking ceremony on the north side of the Cantor Arts Center, more than 200 invited guests looked on as Hunk, Moo and Putter Anderson put golden shovels in the dirt to commemorate the official start of construction on the building to house the Anderson Collection at Stanford University. Putter Anderson Pence, along with her parents, Hunk and Moo Anderson, each spoke at the groundbreaking. Provost John Etchemendy t…

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The Collection of a Lifetime

…forefront once again.” pollock ©2014 The Pollock-Krasner Foundation/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York The Andersons purchased Lucifer in 1970. Former collection intern Neal Benezra, MA ’81, PhD ’83, director of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, told the L.A. Times: “What is most extraordinary in the collection is the representation of Abstract Expressionist works at a time when a museum can only dream of acquiri…