Iris & B. Gerald Cantor Center for Visual Arts
Encyclopedia
The Iris & B. Gerald Cantor Center for Visual Arts at Stanford University, formerly the Stanford University Museum of Art, and commonly known as the Cantor Arts Center, is an art museum on the campus of Stanford University
Stanford University
The Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San...

 in Stanford, California
Stanford, California
Stanford is a census-designated place in Santa Clara County, California, United States and is the home of Stanford University. The population was 13,809 at the 2010 census....

. The museum, which opened in 1894, consists of over 130,000 square feet of space, including sculpture gardens. The Cantor Center houses the largest collection of Auguste Rodin
Auguste Rodin
François-Auguste-René Rodin , known as Auguste Rodin , was a French sculptor. Although Rodin is generally considered the progenitor of modern sculpture, he did not set out to rebel against the past...

 sculptures, totaling over 400, outside of the Musee Rodin
Musée Rodin
The Musée Rodin in Paris, France, is a museum that was opened in 1919 in the Hôtel Biron and surrounding grounds. It displays works by the French sculptor Auguste Rodin....

; many are on display in the B. Gerald Cantor Rodin Sculpture Garden.

History

The Leland Stanford Jr. Museum opened in 1894, one of the few founded by a private family with a general art collection. By 1905 the museum would be known for it's collection of Asian art
Asian art
Asian art can refer to art amongst many cultures in Asia.-Various types of Asian art:*Afghan art*Azerbaijanian art*Balinese art*Bhutanese art*Buddhist art*Burmese contemporary art*Chinese art*Eastern art*Indian art*Iranian art*Islamic art...

. The 1906 San Francisco earthquake
1906 San Francisco earthquake
The San Francisco earthquake of 1906 was a major earthquake that struck San Francisco, California, and the coast of Northern California at 5:12 a.m. on Wednesday, April 18, 1906. The most widely accepted estimate for the magnitude of the earthquake is a moment magnitude of 7.9; however, other...

 would level two wings of the building; destroying the Roman, Egyptian and Asian galleries. Three-quarters of the building were damaged beyond repair. The earthquake, coupled with the death of co-founder Jane Stanford
Jane Stanford
Jane Stanford was the co-founder of Stanford University with her husband, Leland Stanford, whom she wed in 1850. She was the daughter of a shopkeeper and lived on Washington Avenue in Albany, New York, before her marriage...

, affected the museums budget. The museum failed to have it's own endowment outside of the University, and faculty and administration failed to express interest in saving the museum to focus on academic concerns post-earthquake. The building would fall into heavy disrepair and curatorial duties would eventually stop.

Eventually the museum's space would be used by natural science departments, before eventually closing in 1945. The museums collection was inventoried and works of less interest and "aesthetic merit" were deaccessioned. While many works of less interest were released, a number of the original works from the Stanford family collection were deaccessioned due to the aesthetic taste of the 1950s. In May of 1951, 2,000 visitors were welcomed into the museum for a two-day trial visit. This allowed the museum to examine it's role within the community in order to help it decide if it should re-open due to community interest. In 1953 the Committee for Art at Stanford was founded, with intentions of raising funds and developing members to re-open the museum. The museum would reopen in 1954 with Stanford professor Lorenz Eitner as director of the Committee. The museum would work for the next 24 years to expand and conserve it's collection, develop programming, educational services and publications.

In 1985, professor Albert Elsen worked with art collector B. Gerald Cantor, and other donors, to open the B. Gerald Cantor Rodin Sculpture Garden. The museum would again be victim to another earthquake, the Loma Prieta
Loma Prieta earthquake
The Loma Prieta earthquake, also known as the Quake of '89 and the World Series Earthquake, was a major earthquake that struck the San Francisco Bay Area of California on October 17, 1989, at 5:04 p.m. local time...

. Severe damage caused the museum to close in 1989. Stanford hired, in 1991, Thomas K. Seligman, to direct the rebuilding of the museum. Seligman would lead in redefining the museum as an arts center, stress the institution's opportunity to educate Stanford's students, school children and the wider public.

The museum would reopen in 1999 as the Iris & Gerald Cantor Center for the Visual Arts and in July 2005 the museum had it's one millionth visitor.

Renovations and re-opening

After being heavily damaged by the Loma Prieta earthquake in 1999, the building underwent major renovations and construction before reopening as the Cantor Center for Visual Arts. The Center was designed by the architectural firm Ennead Architects. The project cost $36.8 million, which included a complete seismic upgrade of the entire 78,000 square foot historical building and the new 42,000 square foot wing. The Rodin Sculpture Garden was improved, and new gardens were also installed for contemporary works. The addition of the new wing added an additional 12,000 square feet of exhibition space for the modern and contemporary collections. Contemporary architecture is blended with the original 1891 building, with a full-length glass wall, which looks over the courtyard between the new and old buildings.

Collection

The Cantor Center Visual Arts collection is encyclopedic in nature, covering antiquity, ethnographic art, modern, contemporary and more. The center houses over 500 works of African art
African art
African art constitutes one of the most diverse legacies on earth. Though many casual observers tend to generalize "traditional" African art, the continent is full of people, societies, and civilizations, each with a unique visual special culture. The definition also includes the art of the African...

, with a focus on figurative
Figurative art
Figurative art, sometimes written as figurativism, describes artwork—particularly paintings and sculptures—which are clearly derived from real object sources, and are therefore by definition representational.-Definition:...

 from Sub-Saharan Africa. About 70 works of this collection are on exhibit. The Center's Oceanic and Indonesian
Indonesian
The word Indonesian may refer to:* Anything of, from, or related to Indonesia, a country in Southeast Asia* A person from Indonesia, or of Indonesian descent. For information on the Indonesian people, see Demographics of Indonesia and Culture of Indonesia...

 collections consist of over 450 objects and textiles, including works from the Batak
Batak (Indonesia)
Batak is a collective term used to identify a number of ethnic groups predominantly found in North Sumatra, Indonesia. The term is used to include the Toba, Karo, Pakpak, Simalungun, Angkola and Mandailing, each of which are distinct but related groups with distinct, albeit related, languages and...

. Native American art
Native American art
Visual arts by indigenous peoples of the Americas encompasses the visual artistic traditions of the indigenous peoples of the Americas from ancient times to the present...

 collections focus mainly on California
Indigenous peoples of California
The Indigenous peoples of California are the indigenous inhabitants who have lived or currently live in the geographic area within the current boundaries of California before and after the arrival of Europeans. With over one hundred federally recognized tribes, California has the largest Native...

, Southwest and Northwestern works. Basketry and cultural objects from the Yurok, Karuk
Karuk
Karuk is an indigenous people of California in the United States.The tribal headquarters, located off State Route 96, is in the town of Happy Camp, California. Currently the tribe has three tribal board meeting places, in Yreka, Happy Camp, and Orleans...

, and Hupa
Hupa
Hupa, also spelled Hoopa, are a Native American tribe in northwestern California. Their autonym is Natinixwe, also spelled Natinookwa, meaning "People of the Place Where the Trails Return." The majority of the tribe is enrolled in the federally recognized Hoopa Valley Tribe; however, some Hupa are...

 peoples, as collected by John Daggett
John Daggett
John Daggett served as the 16th Lieutenant Governor of California from 1883 to 1887. The site known as Calico Junction just south of the mining town of Calico, California, was renamed Daggett, California, in 1883 for Lieutenant Governor John Daggett....

 are on display, and are from the original museum collection. About 200 works from Mesoamerica
Mesoamerica
Mesoamerica is a region and culture area in the Americas, extending approximately from central Mexico to Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica, within which a number of pre-Columbian societies flourished before the Spanish colonization of the Americas in the 15th and...

 are also on displaying, including terracotta works from West Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...

 and ancient ceramics from the Mimbres, the Anasazi and Casas Grandes
Casas Grandes
Casas Grandes is the contemporary name given to a pre-Columbian archaeological zone and its central site, located in northwestern Mexico in the modern-day Mexican state of Chihuahua. It is one of the largest and most complex sites in the region...

.

The Center has the largest collection of Auguste Rodin
Auguste Rodin
François-Auguste-René Rodin , known as Auguste Rodin , was a French sculptor. Although Rodin is generally considered the progenitor of modern sculpture, he did not set out to rebel against the past...

 works outside of the Musee Rodin
Musée Rodin
The Musée Rodin in Paris, France, is a museum that was opened in 1919 in the Hôtel Biron and surrounding grounds. It displays works by the French sculptor Auguste Rodin....

 in Paris. The collection, purchased by B. Gerald Cantor, includes over 400 works.

In 2011, the museum announced the donation of 121 paintings and sculptures from Harry W. and Mary Margaret Anderson, and their daughter, Mary Patricia Anderson Pence, of Atherton, California
Atherton, California
Atherton is an incorporated town in San Mateo County, California, United States. Its population was 6,914 at the 2010 census. In September 2010, Forbes magazine placed Atherton's zip code of 94027 at #2 on its annual list of America's most expensive zip codes, with a median home price of $4,010,200...

. The collection, mostly of post-
Post-war
A post-war period or postwar period is the interval immediately following the ending of a war and enduring as long as war does not resume. A post-war period can become an interwar period or interbellum when a war between the same parties resumes at a later date...

WW2
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

 American art
American Art
American Art is the debut album of the band Weatherbox. It was released on May 8, 2007 on Doghouse Records. The album received critical acclaim from several sources including underground music distribution company Smartpunk, who lauded the band's style:...

, includes Jackson Pollock
Jackson Pollock
Paul Jackson Pollock , known as Jackson Pollock, was an influential American painter and a major figure in the abstract expressionist movement. During his lifetime, Pollock enjoyed considerable fame and notoriety. He was regarded as a mostly reclusive artist. He had a volatile personality, and...

's Lucifer as well as works from Mark Rothko
Mark Rothko
Mark Rothko, born Marcus Rothkowitz , was a Russian-born American painter. He is classified as an abstract expressionist, although he himself rejected this label, and even resisted classification as an "abstract painter".- Childhood :Mark Rothko was born in Dvinsk, Vitebsk Province, Russian...

, Ad Reinhardt
Ad Reinhardt
Adolph Frederick Reinhardt was an Abstract painter active in New York beginning in the 1930s and continuing through the 1960s. He was a member of the American Abstract Artists and was a part of the movement centered around the Betty Parsons Gallery that became known as Abstract Expressionism...

 and Willem de Kooning
Willem de Kooning
Willem de Kooning was a Dutch American abstract expressionist artist who was born in Rotterdam, the Netherlands....

. An gallery devoted to the collection is slated to open in 2014.

Further reading

  • Elsen, Albert E. and Rosalyn Frankel Jamison. Rodin's Art: The Rodin Collection of Iris & B. Gerald Cantor Center of Visual Arts at Stanford University. Oxford: Oxford University Press (2003). ISBN 0195133811

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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