Celebrating Modern Art: The Anderson Collection

The Anderson Collection is among the greatest private collections of modern and contemporary art in the United States. As the highlight of its year 2000 exhibition schedule, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art will present the collection, featuring more than 330 paintings, sculptures, and works on paper by nearly 140 artists of international renown. This beautiful large-format volume, published in conjunction with the exhibition, features essays by leading art critics and scholars as well as lavish color plates of 285 of the works, providing an extraordinary overview of modern and contemporary art.

Both the exhibition and book divide this outstanding collection into five sections. "The New York School" features works by Mark Rothko, Willem de Kooning, Jackson Pollock, Jasper Johns, Andy Warhol, and Roy Lichtenstein, among others. "Art in California" includes works by Robert Arneson, Richard Diebenkorn, Sam Francis, and Wayne Theibaud. "Contemporary Art" presents work from the 1970s and 1980s by Scott Burton, Susan Rothenberg, Terry Winters, Elizabeth Murray, and others. "Modern Sculpture" offers an impressive array of works by such artists as Alberto Giacometti, Auguste Rodin, and Alexander Calder. "Works on Paper" showcases drawings, watercolors, and gouaches by a range of artists, which mirrors the scope of the collection as a whole.

Overview essays for each of the five sections are written respectively by Jack Flam, Bill Berkson, Neal Benezra, Michael Brenson, and John Elderfield. A number of shorter texts address particular highlights of the collection.

Gary Garrels's introductory essay discusses the Anderson Collection as a whole and provides a context for its role as one of the most important private collections in the United States.

Gary Garrels is Chief Curator of Drawings and Curator of Painting and Sculpture at the Museum of Modern Art, New York.