Alteronce Gumby | September 24, 2025 - March 1, 2026
1st Floor, Wisch Family Gallery

The Anderson Collection presents the first West Coast museum exhibition of New York–based artist Alteronce Gumby. Featuring nine recent works, the show celebrates Gumby’s ongoing investigation of color, the cosmos, and abstraction. Drawing inspiration from artists represented in the Anderson Collection, such as Mark Rothko and Joan Mitchell, Gumby’s luminous, textured surfaces extend the legacies of 20th-century American painting while forging a distinctly contemporary path. The exhibition will be on view in the Wisch Family Gallery from September 24, 2025-March 1, 2026.

About the Artist
Alteronce Gumby is a contemporary abstract painter interested in the history of monochromatic painting, color theory, cosmology, astrophysics, and interstellar photography. Gumby’s process is the fulcrum of his work. It begins with the examination of light and its properties, and media including resin, glass and gemstones. This unorthodox blend of materials results in works Gumby calls “tonal paintings”, each producing unique hues, values and energies. Dynamic and vibrant, Gumby’s paintings propose an expanded understanding of abstraction, color, life and the origins of the universe. Gumby graduated from the Yale School of Art with an MFA in Painting and Printmaking in 2016. He has won notable awards such as the Austrian American Foundation/ Seebacher Prize for Fine Arts and the Robert Reed Memorial Scholarship. Gumby has also participated in numerous international artist residencies such as the Rauschenberg Residency (2019), London Summer Intensive (2016), Summer Academy in Salzburg, Austria (2015), 6Base (2016), Harriet Hale Woolley Scholarship at the Fondation des Étas-Unis in Paris (2016) and is the 2024-2025 recipient of the prestigious Pollock-Krasner Foundation grant for artists.

Spotlights | September 10, 2025 - February 15, 2026
SECOND FLOOR GALLERIES

This season, the Anderson Collection debuts spotlight installations of three celebrated artists—Susan Rothenberg, Sean Scully, and Robert Therrien. For the first time, visitors can experience focused presentations of their work at the museum, with multiple pieces by each artist brought into focus in dedicated gallery spaces. From Rothenberg’s dynamic figuration to Scully’s lyrical abstraction and Therrien’s playful graphic and sculptural forms, these spotlights showcase the power and range of modern and contemporary American art.

About the Artists
Susan Rothenberg (1945–2020) was a trailblazing painter whose bold canvases reintroduced the figure into contemporary art at a time when abstraction dominated. Rising to prominence in the mid-1970s with her iconic horse-centered paintings, she forged a distinctive style that merged gestural brushwork, symbolic imagery, and psychological intensity. Over five decades, Rothenberg expanded her vocabulary to include fragments of the human body, animals, and everyday forms, always maintaining a raw immediacy that bridged abstraction and representation. Born in Buffalo, New York, she studied at Cornell University before moving to New York City, where her early exhibitions helped redefine painting for a new generation. Her work has been the subject of major retrospectives at institutions such as the Albright-Knox Art Gallery and the Whitney Museum of American Art, securing her place as one of the most influential painters of her era.

Sean Scully (b. 1945) is an acclaimed painter whose work transformed American abstraction by infusing Minimalist structure with emotional resonance and spiritual depth. Best known for his monumental canvases of luminous bands, blocks, and shifting geometries, Scully also works across printmaking, sculpture, watercolor, and pastel. Over a career spanning five decades, he has developed a visual language that synthesizes American abstraction with the legacies of European modernism and classical architecture, producing paintings of both grandeur and intimacy. Born in Dublin in 1945 and raised in London, Scully studied at Newcastle University before moving to New York in 1975, where he continues to live and work. His art has been celebrated in major touring retrospectives worldwide, and in 2013 he was elected to the Royal Academy of Arts in London.

Robert Therrien (1947–2019) was an artist celebrated for transforming ordinary objects into extraordinary encounters. Working in sculpture, painting, and drawing, he reimagined familiar forms—dishes stacked high, a giant folding table and chairs, or a simple red door—at a monumental scale that was both playful and uncanny. Therrien’s art invited viewers to reconsider the everyday, imbuing humble subjects with a sense of wonder, humor, and quiet mystery. Born in Chicago and based for much of his career in Los Angeles, he emerged in the 1970s and quickly became associated with a generation of artists expanding the possibilities of sculpture. His work has been exhibited internationally in museums and biennials, and is represented in major collections worldwide, affirming his reputation as a singular voice in contemporary art.

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The Anderson Collection at Stanford University is home to an extraordinary collection of modern and contemporary American art, established by a transformative gift of painting and sculpture from Harry W. and Mary Margaret Anderson and Mary Patricia Anderson Pence. The museum’s collection has grown since its founding and special exhibitions feature the work of artists addressing important issues of our time. Highlights include significant works by Richard Diebenkorn, Helen Frankenthaler, Robert Irwin, Agnes Martin, Joan Mitchell, Jackson Pollock, Martin Puryear, and Mary Weatherford.

Highlights Tours
Saturdays and Sundays, 12:30 pm + 2:30pm
Drop-in to join a 45-minute public tour led by a museum engagement guide exploring highlighted works in the Anderson Collection. Meet your guide at the top of the stairs.
Groups of 10 to 20 may schedule a private guided Highlights tour.

Spotlight Tours
Thursdays, Noon and 12:30 pm
Join us for a 15-minute spotlight tour led by a museum engagement guide. Meet your guide at the top of the stairs.

Images:

Alteronce Gumby (American, b. 1985), Chasing Rainbows, 2023, Gemstones, glass, and acrylic on panel, Collection of Ayesha Selden. ©Alteronce Gumby. Courtesy of Alteronce Gumby Studio