Cantor Arts Center & Anderson Collection Magazine | Fall - Winter 2023

WHAT’S NEW AT THE ANDERSON
Sam Francis Centennial
Through MAR. 3, 2024
Born in San Mateo in 1923,
Sam Francis began his painting
career after a serious illness,
contracted while training in
the United States Army Air
Corps, left him immobilized in
a Northern California hospital.
During his recuperation period,
Francis studied with Anderson
Collection artist David Park,
who later became a key figure
of the Bay Area Figurative Movement. Painting became, for Francis, a
“way back to life.” In the late 1940s, he returned to the University of
California, Berkeley, to study painting and art history before moving
to Paris in 1950, where he remained for 12 years. He first traveled
to Japan in 1957 and subsequently spent significant periods of his
life there. Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, Francis was one of his
generation’s most well-known American artists in Western Europe
and Japan.
The exhibition highlights Francis’ multifaceted connection to Palo
Alto and the Anderson family. Though he was familiar with this area as
it was his birthplace, it was not until the early 1970s that Francis began
making frequent trips to Palo Alto from his home in Santa Monica to
create prints at 3EP Ltd., a printing press founded by gallerist Paula
Kirkeby, artist Joseph Goldyne,
and collector Mary Margaret
“Moo” Anderson. In 1986,
Francis established a studio
near Stanford University in a
former spray shop for cars that
he transformed into a work
sanctuary. Francis’ artistic
output energized Palo Alto for
decades, and his work became
widely represented in local
collections, including the Anderson family’s. Two Francis paintings
were part of the original 121 works gifted to Stanford by Moo and
Harry W. “Hunk” Anderson and their daughter, Mary Patricia “Putter”
Anderson Pence.
This exhibition is organized by the Anderson Collection at Stanford University, with research and writing by Emily Chun, PhD
candidate in art history. We gratefully acknowledge the lenders and support from the Sam Francis Foundation, museum members,
and the Anderson family. We thank Mitchell Johnson, Stefan Kirkeby, Nancy Mozur, Putter Pence, and John Seed for their
participation. IMAGES: Sam Francis, Red in Red, 1955, oil on canvas, 2014.1.011 • Sam Francis, The Beaubourg, 1977, acrylic
on canvas, 2014.1.053. Both works: Anderson Collection at Stanford University, Gift of Harry W. and Mary Margaret
Anderson, and Mary Patricia Anderson Pence. © Sam Francis Foundation, California / Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY
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