Stanford University is home to the core of the Anderson Collection, one of the world’s outstanding private assemblies of modern and contemporary American painting and sculpture.
The collection is a gift from Harry W. and Mary Margaret Anderson and Mary Patricia Anderson Pence, the Bay Area family who built the collection over the last 50 years. Each work is exemplary of its movement, which include Bay Area Abstraction, Bay Area Figuration, California Light & Space, Color Field Painting, Contemporary Painting, Funk, Hard-Edge Painting, New York School, and Post-Minimalism. At the Anderson Collection at Stanford University, visitors can explore the breadth of post-war American art and experience the distinctive art collecting vision of the Anderson family.
The Anderson Collection building, is part of a Stanford University directive to develop a prominent arts district and revitalized arts gateway to the University along Palm Drive. The 33,000-square-foot-building includes dedicated exhibition spaces on the second floor below an undulating ceiling. The gentle slope of the ceiling and the continuous translucent clerestory at the perimeter of the building bring diffused natural light into the galleries from above.