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A Celebration Year Featuring Special Exhibitions and Acquisitions

Passion for Collecting
Fall 2008 to Fall 2009

Stanford, California - The Cantor Arts Center at Stanford University announces a year of exhibitions and programs, presented around the theme of “Passion for Collecting,” and celebrating its long history and the completion of its most successful decade of service since the museum's founding with Stanford University in 1891. Starting fall 2008 and continuing into fall 2009, all 24 of the Cantor Arts Center's galleries will feature works from the collection, with temporary exhibitions presenting the most noteworthy of recent acquisitions.

The 2008-2009 academic year marks the 10th anniversary of the museum's reopening after the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, which forced the museum's extended closure. Reopened in January 1999, enlarged, enhanced, and renamed after lead donors Iris and B. Gerald Cantor, the museum now completes a decade with the most visitors served, most exhibitions presented, most exhibition catalogues published, and most programs offered in its 100-plus years.

“Topping this list of superlatives is the art that we obtained in recent years, all received as gifts, bequests, or purchased with donated funds,” said Cantor Arts Center Director Thomas K. Seligman. “These acquisitions set a new standard for the collection and a baseline for the Center's acquisitions in the future. This is art that will engage the public and enhance their visits for generations to come. These works also serve the academic community and provide opportunities for scholarly involvement.”

The year's exhibitions showcase the Center's diverse collections. Four shows present major works acquired this decade: European and American art in “Dürer to Picasso” (November 12, 2008-February 15, 2009) and “Pop to Present” (March 18-August 16, 2009); African art in “Timbuktu to Cape Town” (December 3, 2008-March 22, 2009); and Asian works in “From the Bronze Age of China to Japan's Floating World” (July 29-October 18, 2009). A reinstallation of one of the university's most important collections, entitled “Rodin! The Complete Stanford Collection,” opens February 18, 2009 and continues indefinitely. Works by Stanford graduate and former visiting artist Richard Diebenkorn continue on view through November 9, 2008.

Three additional shows complete the year's temporary exhibition schedule: “Hendrick Goltzius: Promised Gifts from the Kirk Long Collection” (December 17, 2008-March 29, 2009); “Splendid Grief: Darren Waterston and the Afterlife of Leland Stanford Jr.” (April 15-July 5, 2009); and a student project, “Appellations from Antiquity” (April 15-July 26, 2009).

Cantor Arts Center acquires art selectively, guided by curators' experience, knowledge, and enthusiasms. Curators' passionate expertise informs the process of collecting and exhibiting artwork. “Specific factors for objects' selection are varied,” explained Patience Young, Cantor Arts Center's curator for education. “Each work is initially proposed by a curator who is excited about the work's aesthetic strength, historic significance, rarity, or other exceptional quality - or usually a combination of factors. Artworks of the highest quality are deliberately selected for specific reasons. These reasons correspond to the museum's current and potential role in university life and scholarship. We chose with the intent to benefit visitors and researchers. We invite visitors to judge for themselves: did we do well?”

VISITOR INFORMATION: Cantor Arts Center is open Wednesday – Sunday, 11 am – 5 pm, Thursday until 8 pm. Admission is free. The Center is located on the Stanford campus, off Palm Drive at Museum Way. Parking is free after 4 p.m. and all day on weekends. Information: 650-723-4177, museum.stanford.edu.

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