Harry and Mary Margaret Anderson, known around Stanford as “Hunk” and “Moo” (don’t ask), surprised the art world when they chose the University over San Francisco’s larger museums for a massive donation in 2011. To honor the 121 contemporary artworks, including those of Jackson Pollack, Philip Guston and numerous pieces by Richard Diebenkorn, Stanford is in the final stages of building a special gallery, The Anderson Collection, solely for their donation.
One of the reasons the Andersons offered for bequeathing such a chunk of their world-class collection to Stanford instead of, say, SFMOMA, is a simple matter of spreading the love: they’d already donated 30 pieces to SFMOMA in 1992. So it is with a bit of irony that on the eve of the opening of The Anderson Collection, which opens to the public Sept. 21, the next-door Cantor Center for the Arts shows ten works on loan from the Andersons’ SFMOMA donation.
Including Robert Indiana’s Love and Andy Warhol’s Self-Portrait from 1967, the exhibition also features work by Jim Dine, Jasper Johns, Roy Lichtenstein, Claes Oldenburg, Robert Rauschenberg, and James Rosenquist. Consider it an appetizer for the Andersons’ grand reveal at Stanford in late September.
Watch a KQED Newsroom interview with the Andersons in their art-filled home.
