Cantor Arts Center
328 Lomita Drive at Museum Way
Stanford, CA 94305-5060
Phone: 650-723-4177
Each academic year, thousands of scholars rely on the Cantor and Anderson Collection at Stanford University for research, teaching and learning. While there is no substitute for experiencing art in person, we also encourage students and faculty to engage with our collections virtually and to reach out to our education team with questions and ideas.
Check back often—we will be updating these resources throughout the spring, summer and autumn quarters.
We’re here to help! Please reach out for questions about research, teaching and learning with the museums' collections.
Cantor Arts Center
Contact: Alyssa Diaz,
Academic Programs Coordinator
Anderson Collection at Stanford University
Contact: Aimee Shapiro,
Director of Programming and Engagement
A selection of works in the museums' collections organized by period, author, medium, theme and/or particular exhibition.
Love, Death and Mourning at Stanford
This page features objects included in the exhibition and on view in Cantor’s two Stanford Family Galleries based on themes of mourning, loss, and the Stanford empire in the Melancholy Museum.
By Sanford Biggers
Sanford Biggers (b. 1970) builds fantastical composite art objects, or invents images of them, to explore the hybrid ideas born out of encounters between different cultures.
An eclectic selection of twelve prints and drawings given by Stanford alumna Marilyn F. Symmes (BA, ’71) ranging from an Italian Renaissance portrait a stark memorial to the World Trade Center in New York.
Sketchbooks
Throughout his long career, seminal California artist Richard Diebenkorn (Stanford BA ’49) always kept a sketchbook—a “portable studio,” as he called it—to capture his ideas. The books contain 1,045 drawings that span the artist’s career and represent the range of styles and subjects he explored.
Photography Archive
This collection of Warhol’s contact sheets – printed thumbnails from a roll of film – represents the complete range of the American artist’s black-and-white photographic practice from 1976 until his unexpected death in 1987.
This impressive collection is the result of a close working relationship and friendship between Albert Elsen (1927–1995), the Stanford University curator, professor, and Rodin scholar, and B. Gerald Cantor (1916–1996), the American financier and philanthropist.
His pioneering work in photographic studies of motion took place in a studio at Stanford's Palo Alto Stock Farm, using Leland Sr.'s horse 'Occidental' as his subject.
Though each photograph can be shown separately, a group of five displayed together has the greatest effect. Surf Sequence is one of my most successful photographic expressions. ―Ansel Adams
Photography Collection at Stanford University
This gift includes works by American photographic masters Ansel Adams, Edward Curtis, John Gutmann, Helen Levitt, Wright Morris, Gordon Parks, and Edward Weston.
Commerce in Early Modern Europe
European artists of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries took great interest in depicting what was new and exciting in public life, including the rapidly expanding market for material goods and services.
Spaces for Experiencing Art in Europe, 1600-1800
Before public and private art museums proliferated in Europe during the nineteenth century, artists illustrated—and imagined—emerging public venues where art was experienced, discussed, and collected.
Art Since 1950
In 1964, Canadian media theorist Marshall McLuhan published his groundbreaking study, Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man, in which he argues that the way information is transmitted is as important as the content being conveyed—or in his words, “the medium is the message.”
In the wake of World War II, an informal group of artists referred to as “Abstract Expressionists” or “The New York School” introduced the first major avant-garde art movement to develop in the United States.
In the 1950s, a small group of artists in San Francisco took a surprising turn away from Abstract Expressionism by reintroducing recognizable subject matter into their painting.
Exhibition Brochure
Explore the cultural exchanges between the Safavid Empire in Persia and Europe in Crossing the Caspian.
Exhibition Catalog
Explore a gift of drawings, prints, and paintings by African American modernist Jacob Lawrence addressing Black history and civil rights, public life, faith, and creativity.
Exhibition Brochure
This Mellon curatorial research assistantship project reveals new insights about objects in the Cantor’s collection in order to demonstrate the complexity of labels such as “authentic,” “fake,” and “forgery.”
At Stanford University
The Capital Group Foundation Photography Collection at Stanford University consists of more than one thousand twentieth-century photographs highlighting seven masters of photography.
Exhibition Catalog
Curated by Stanford PhD Candidates, Left of Center seeks to show how modes of art-making that originated on the West Coast decisively changed the topography of American modernism.
and the Assertion of Modern Figurative Sculpture
Representing the breadth of the artist’s oeuvre, this book offers insights into the development of Manuel Neri’s sculpture and a fresh perspective on his contributions to contemporary art.
Feature Essays
Explore the Andersons' journey of art discovery made possible with the guidance of two prominent Stanford University professors—Albert E. Elsen and Nathan Oliveira—as well as Henry Sayles Francis, a retired curator from the Cleveland Museum of Art, and Helen Heninger, who developed the Andersons’ first working collection plan.
This brochure is published on the occasion of Formed and Fired: Contemporary American Ceramics, curated by Jason Linetzky, Director, and organized by the Anderson Collection at Stanford University.
The museum extends its deepest gratitude to the artists and lenders.
This publication is written entirely by students at Stanford University, and includes essays from graduate students Koji Lau-Ozawa, a PhD candidate in the Department of Anthropology; Jon Ayon Alonso, MFA candidate in Documentary Film and Video Studies; and undergraduate students Ekalan Hou, Melissa Santos, and Georgia Gardner.
The installation will be on display in the first floor of the Anderson Collection at Stanford University upon reopening and through the Spring of 2021.
Explore other digital resources to engage with art in teaching, research and learning.
Stanford offers a wide array of research digital resources through their libraries. Explore notable collections, digital archives and online exhibits available. The Library also offers services for Faculty and guidance for Students on how to search through their catalog.
For more to explore, visit Museums From Home, a digest of digital visual arts content for the broader community. Explore digitized collections, virtual tours, recorded lectures and oral histories and more through this new online portal.
Digital & printable PDFs and in-depth object narratives from our collection
Our curators have prepared special learning guides for use with Stanford coursework and research. Videos and virtual gallery talks will be available in upcoming weeks!
Engage with the Cantor—jobs, internships, and social events are open to students of all levels and majors.
The Cantor Arts Center is a laboratory of learning and a center of scholarly inquiry. Our programs offer substantive opportunities for students and faculty to engage with our encyclopedic collection.