Since its opening in 2014, the Anderson Collection at Stanford University has become a home to thousands of students, faculty, staff, artists, and community members. It is a place that invites anyone to experience masterworks directly and connect with remarkable artists in a welcoming environment.

“Over the years, the Anderson Collection established itself as an extraordinary home for art and community that cultivates student learning and leadership, invites new voices and interpretations, and inspires reflection and connection,” said Jason Linetzky, the director of the museum on the occasion of the 10th anniversary. “I’m incredibly grateful for the many partnerships that have brought us to this milestone moment and so look forward to carrying this momentum into the next decade.”

This fall, the museum is celebrating its roots by introducing new perspectives on the collection provided by graduate students and continuing the tradition of presenting works that honor the Anderson family’s “head and the hand” concept, which refers to artwork that combines ingenuity and craftsmanship.

Jason Linetzky, director of the Anderson Collection, works with Christian Gonzalez Ho, Stanford PhD candidate in art history, and a team of art handlers to draw inspiration from the Anderson family home and translate that into two 10th-anniversary exhibitions, “An Expanded Lens” and “Bringing It Home.” | Taylor Jones

Co-creating with students

In 1975, the Andersons started a graduate internship program for Stanford doctoral art history students that continues today. Over five decades, more than 30 Stanford doctoral candidates interned at the Anderson home. Now, new cohorts are involved at the museum, engaging in intensive study and organizing exhibitions drawn from the collection.

One of the 10th-anniversary exhibitions, An Expanded Lens, showcases the voices and curatorial collaboration of three Stanford art history PhD candidates, Emily Chun, Christian Gonzalez Ho, and Dejan Vasic. These students took personal approaches to arranging and interpreting artworks based on themes that include perception, geographic influence, and questions of meaning and embodiment. They also contributed essays to the 10th-anniversary catalog, Home Is Where the Art Is.

The exhibition, which occupies the lobby and the entire second floor, invites viewers to reimagine their relationship to artwork in the Anderson Collection by providing new interpretations of the permanent collection through historic arrangements and contemporary pairings on loan from the Anderson family.

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“I was very intrigued by the transition of objects and artworks from the Anderson family home to a museum space,” said Vasic. “This displacement significantly alters the context in which they are viewed, thereby profoundly influencing their interpretation and perception.”

Commenting on the grouping of Jackson Pollock’s painting Lucifer (1947), Peter Alexander’s sculpture Untitled (1971), and a sideboard from the family’s dining room where the three objects once coexisted, Vasic observes, “These objects now reside in a museum, where their context – and our perception of them – undergoes a radical transformation. The sideboard, the painting, and the sculpture are all part of the transformative experience where everyday life and art come together.”

Contemporary loans installed alongside permanent collection works include paintings, sculptures, and videos by Tauba Auerbach, ’03; Nick Cave; Mary Corse; Frederick Eversley; Liam Everett; Yvonne Jacquette; Julie Mehretu; and Ed Ruscha.

Left to right, paintings by Sam Francis (Red in Red), Ad Reinhardt (Abstract Painting 1966), Joseph Albers (Homage to the Square: Diffused), and Morris Louis (Number 64) displayed in the Anderson family home. | Johnna Arnold

Signature paintings by Morris Louis (Number 64), Sam Francis (Red in Red), Joseph Albers (Homage to the Square: Diffused), and Jackson Pollock (Totem Lesson I) are assembled around a family rug and fireplace at the Anderson Collection. | Taylor Jones

A place for community

The Anderson family home was a vibrant nexus for art discussions and shared meals, and it fostered a rich tapestry of community and conversation. Bringing It Home in the Wisch Family Gallery on the first floor includes a recreation of the family’s kitchen wall with artwork by artists they knew and admired, including Philip Guston, Frank Stella, and Josef Albers. This salon-style arrangement over the family’s breakfast table, with jazz and big band music providing the soundtrack, is accompanied by related correspondence and photographs, further highlighting the importance these relationships held for the family and artists.

The exhibition celebrates the love of living with art and foundational relationships between influential artists and the Anderson family. Art and artists commingled with the family in their home, and while artwork was installed in every room, the kitchen was where the family started each day and shared space with personally significant artworks.

For Gonzalez Ho, who was inspired to pursue his PhD at Stanford after visiting the Anderson Collection five years ago, the museum has become a locus of pedagogical practice and research and, like the Anderson home, a place for community. “I hold classes here and take groups on tours to develop and explore new ideas. In 2022, I was the liaison for the museums and the art history department. I hosted coffees and gatherings with the Anderson team, and that’s where a lot of exciting collaborations began emerging.”

The Wisch Family Gallery has been and will continue to be a space for contemporary artists to experiment and be celebrated in special exhibitions. Some of the artists included in the 37 special exhibitions throughout the museum, including in Wisch, are Lita Albuquerque, Jim Campbell, Nick Cave, Simone Leigh, Manuel Neri, Eamon Ore-Giron, Wendy Red Star, and Stephanie Syjuco, MFA ’05.

The Anderson family kitchen was a nexus for art discussions and shared meals in the company of works from various artists. | Johnna Arnold

This recreation of the Anderson family kitchen wall is the centerpiece of the exhibition “Bringing It Home.” | Andrew Brodhead

In the spring, the Anderson Collection will introduce The Journey Continues, a celebration of contemporary women artists that adds new dimensions to the story of modern and contemporary art told by the museum. The exhibition will feature established and emerging artists such as Sadie Barnette, Dee Clements, Sarah Crowner, Sheila Hicks, and several others, highlighting works made within the last 10 years. The featured art is formally and materially inventive across sculptures, ceramics, weaving, textile work, and mixed media. As part of the museum’s anniversary year programming, this exhibition helps chart a direction for the second decade that invites contemporary artists to dialogue with the museum’s core collection. The exhibition will be on view in the Wisch Family Gallery from March 19 through Aug. 31, 2025.

Bringing It Home is on view through Feb. 16, 2025, and An Expanded Lens is on view through Aug. 17, 2025.