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.

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Jason Linetzky named first director of the Anderson Collection at Stanford University

Jason Linetzky, Director, Anderson Collection at Stanford University Jason Linetzky has spent the better part of his 20-year career working with one of the world’s most coveted private collections of 20th-century American art: the Anderson Collection. The collection was built over the last 50 years by Bay Area residents Harry W. and Mary Margaret Anderson, and by their daughter, Mary Patricia Anderson Pence. The core of the collection, pledged…

Construction on Anderson Collection art museum begins

REPORT: Stanford

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Top-Flight Ab-Ex Collection Anchors Stanford’s New Art District

…son Collection building  (see “Stanford University Adds Third Building to New Arts District“) will be located at the entrance to the campus, adjacent to the Cantor Arts Center. It is the latest addition to Stanford’s newly created arts district, which includes the recently opened Bing Concert Hall and the McMurty Building for the department of art and art history. Jason Linetzky, the longtime director of the collection, is overseeing the move of…

Anderson Collection at Stanford to open September 21

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Anderson Collection pieces lock in a home at Stanford

…“The Anderson Collection is absolutely, unquestionably world class,” says Jeffrey Fraenkel of Fraenkel Gallery, the prominent San Francisco dealer in photography, a genre not included in the Anderson Collection. “Museums all over the country had their eyes on it hoping to get it until Hunk and Moo made their decision in favor of Stanford.” The Andersons did not choose Stanford because they went there. They didn’t, and neither did their only chil…

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Anderson Collection of 20th century American art, opens at Stanford on Sept. 21

…the likes of Robert Motherwell, Richard Diebenkorn, Jackson Pollock and Helen Frankenthaler. For quite some time the Anderson Collection has been considered one of the most important private assemblages of 20th-century American art anywhere. Now, Stanford has a gorgeous new showcase for the gift of 121 paintings and sculptures from the core of that collection. In addition to Hunk and Moo, the gift comes from their collaborator and only child, dau…

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Anderson Collection has a new home

…n Mario Botta’s original concept for SFMOMA, now under siege as a result of that museum’s expansion, the building is simple and unpretentious, Most importantly, it provides a tasteful showcase for the art – the majority of which is installed on the expansive second floor – while not overshadowing it. Clerestories allow for filtered natural light on either side of a central staircase that has a curved ceiling above it; best of all, an…

Stanford trustees visit new art collection, approve construction

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‘Animating the Inanimate’: Redefining an art form

…th different media, Twist acquires a vocabulary of visual effects that he can incorporate into his performances. The stage, then, becomes Twist’s playground. Twist concluded his presentation by giving a live performance of his puppeteering. With Rothko’s “Pink and White over Red” as his backdrop, Twist commanded the floor, armed with a translucent white expanse of silk cloth. Puppeteering is an art form that engages the entire body, as Twist quic…

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Suit up: Step into the Vibrant, Colorful and Furry World of Artist Nick Cave

…world saw on video, beaten Rodney King. Cave’s first Soundsuit was a kind of safe haven, fully concealing the identity of the wearer at a time when the artist felt profoundly unsafe. The suits still hide, and have the potential to protect, the person inside one of these intricate pieces made from dismissed or cast-off objects such as plastic toys, pipe cleaners, and varicolored faux-fur. But over the years, Cave’s project has expande…

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Fashion statements: Nick Cave’s Soundsuits come to Stanford

…nd-me-downs passed to him from his six older siblings. Cave created his first soundsuit in 1992 as a response to the beating of Rodney King in Los Angeles and the subsequent riots. This suit was made from fallen twigs gathered in Chicago’s Grant Park. He drilled holes in each twig and then sewed them together. His intention was not to create wearable art, but it was only after he slipped the suit of twigs over his head and heard the sound o…

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Why US universities are investing in their art museums

Over the past decade, many university leaders and donors have come to the same conclusion: investment in the arts is essential to building a competitive institution in an increasingly global world. This year, around half a dozen new museums and arts centres are opening on campuses across the country, from Columbia University in New York to Rice University in Texas. They come on the heels of recently completed projects at Stanford in California,…

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Paintings Get the Hollywood Treatment in Student-Curated Show at Anderson

If you’d been dragging your feet on getting to Palo Alto for the Anderson Collection’s Nick Cave exhibition (of Soundsuits, not Bad Seeds fame), now is the time. In addition to person-sized sculptures made for shimmying, the free collection displays Abstraction and the Movies March 1-17 only. Curated by current Stanford undergrad Carlos Valladares, Abstraction and the Movies pairs works from the Anderson Collection with images and posters from f…

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

…the connections are easily made. For example, Franz Kline’s “Untitled (Dancer at Islip)” uses the same bold, black, gestural strokes that can be seen in his paintings. Richard Diebenkorn’s carefully composed use of geometry and muted, cool colors relates directly to the evocative “Ocean Park #60” at the top of the steps. On the other hand, Ad Rhinehart’s “Untitled”, a gouache on paper, is a c…

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Free Museums’ Membership for the Class of 2020!

The Cantor Arts Center and Anderson Collection at Stanford University miss seeing you. We are eager to welcome you back to campus, share art and connect over ideas. Now through August 31, 2020, we are offering all Stanford graduates in the class of 2020 one year of free Ambassador membership ($100 value*) to both museums. Each membership covers up to two adults and children within a single household. To get your FREE membership, fill out t…

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Eamon Ore-Giron Named to Presidential Residency at the Anderson Collection at Stanford University

Celebrated abstract painter explores the visual possibilities of cross-cultural aesthetics and expression through large-scale geometric works June 18, 2020 STANFORD, CA–In the Stanford tradition of providing a home for art and artists who advance dialogue on contemporary issues, the Anderson Collection at Stanford University will welcome visual artist Eamon Ore-Giron to campus for the 2020-2021 Presidential Residency on the Future of the Arts. “…

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Why Artist Wendy Red Star Centered Indigenous People in Her Abstracted Revision of the Iconic Manifest Destiny Painting ‘American Progress’

…t in a U.S. map printed on black vinyl, with implanted white flags representing hundreds of tribal lands. Called Their Land (2022), the map emphasizes the presence of Native tribes today, countering the misconception that Indigenous people are all but extinct. Nearby, a digital projection shows a collection of tribal seals found and researched by Stanford students. There is no consolidated repository or database for these seals of America’s over

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Stephanie Syjuco: White Balance/Color Cast | Anderson Collection at Stanford University

…itle refers to a Photoshop filter), white lilies are set against the checkered backdrop of a transparency layer. The subject of Chromakey Aftermath is an arrangement of protest leftovers (flags, barriers, bricks), colored green-screen green, blank for superimposition. Color-calibration charts show up throughout the exhibition: as objects, they have a pop appeal, grids of cyan and yellow and magenta. Used to check and adjust color, they center whi…