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.

News

A new start for art at Stanford: Cantor Arts Center and Anderson Collection reopen

…um, noted, “These experiences have helped me thoroughly understand the challenges faced by the museum team in their daily work, and areas in which staff want the museum to grow and flourish.” And how do they plan to address the issues raised last summer? “We are working closely with the staff with goals of transparency, empowerment and open communications,” according to Brezinski. For Mitchell, that means talking regularly…

News

New acquisition by David Park on view at the Anderson Collection

…ord alumnus Richard Diebenkorn, Manuel Neri and Nathan Oliveira, who taught at Stanford. Bay Area figurative art is a particular strength of the Anderson Collection and the second Park painting is an important acquisition. A collection of essays about the painting by Nancy Boas, Helen Park Bigelow and John Seed will be available in the galleries and online at the time of the opening. The Anderson Collection reopens to the public on Sept. 22 after…

News

Contemplations on modern art

…een to wake up to the colors and the lines of “Lucifer” everyday. There was a piece that looked like a Rorschach 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? A…

Exhibition

Jim Campbell

Exhibition

Wendy Red Star: American Progress

News

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

…pport of the Anderson family, our terrific Stanford team and the many supporters and volunteers who have made so much possible. I’m thrilled to be sharing this collection with the world and invite you to became a part of the journey.” Stanford constructed a building 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 plan…

Construction on Anderson Collection art museum begins

News

Full House

…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 work by Morris Louis, whose 1954Pendu lum painting hangs in the hallway just outside the dining room—where you’ll find Luciferalong with Still’s 1947 1947-Yand de Kooning’s 1954–55 Woman Standing– Pink—in a space that is also filled, like much of the hous…

News

Stanford: The New Art Place To Be

…nd 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 mid-August — but they are free.   But Stanford will be the place to be soon for more reasons than the Anderson collection. Next door to the Anderson Collection building is the Cantor Arts Center. Last week, the Cantor announced three pretty interesting gifts: Richard Diebenkorn’s sketchbooks, don…

News

Stanford Opens a Museum Highlighting American Art

…3,500-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 together a great…

Stanford trustees visit new art collection, approve construction

News

Senate visits the arts district to discuss the humanities

…istrict 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 much the arts district is blossoming,” said Richard Saller, dean of the School of Humanities and Sciences. “The outcome of the last campaign, in terms of new programs, new facilities and, in some areas, new faculty, has…

News

Honing the art of observation, and observing art

…he 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 like cells coming together to form a…

News

Anderson Collection a modern art trove not to be missed

…t bug. “The Andersons didn’t study art history, and they’re not classically trained as art historians or experts in the arts,” says Jason Linetzky, the Anderson Collection’s founding director. He began working with the family around 2001, providing exhibition assistance as well as installation and curatorial support. “They just started looking and collecting, without much direction, until they met two people on (the Stanford) campus: Al Elsen and…

News

“Reaching Towards Warmer Suns”: A Q&A with artist Kiyan Williams ’13

…onfederate criminals throughout the United States, and so there was a public conversation happening about, “what is the role of public art,” “what is the role of monuments to white male war criminals.” Given all of that, I was inspired to create a public artwork, a monument rooted in a different aesthetic and conceptual framework. TSD: Could you go more into depth about why you choose to use soil in so much of your artwork, and especially in conv…

News

American Progress: Wendy Red Star’s Exhibition at the Anderson Collection

…the things that were literally falling off the edge of the canvas.” In the painting, as the white settlers enter into the frame by the East and expand westward, with domesticated animals and cutting-edge technology, hordes of Native Americans flee along with the bison and other wild animals before heading into the edge of the painting (and history) into oblivion. However, displacement of one body by another is accompanied by a corresponding resis…

News

The Anderson Collection celebrates the 100th anniversary of Sam Francis’ birthday

…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 Francis lived in Paris, and The Beaubourg (1977), made after his return to California. The balance of the works on view is devoted to unique works on…