Cantor Art Museum

Written: September 16, 2003
Last Updated: September 16, 2003

The Digital Vision Fellowship program takes a tour of Stanford's Cantor Art Museum.

The DVF troupe was given a tour of the Iris & Gerald Cantor Center for Visual Arts at Stanford University today. The museum was reopened in 1999, 10 years after the Loma Prieta Earthquake of 1989. Alas, that was two years after I had graduated, though to be honest, I'm not sure how much I would have visited had it been opened during my undergraduate career. I would have probably have said, "Hey, I have four years to go and visit; there's plenty of time!" I'd then find myself going at the end of senior year, only to say to myself, "Man, I should have done this more often!"

At one point in history, the Stanford Museum was the largest museum in North America. Interesting factoid there, along with the price tag that came with restoring the museum following the earthquake, $40 million. The Cantor's donated a sizeable sum and for that, they got their name on the museum. 92% of the museum's collection is actually stored in the basement. Only 8% of the collection is on display. I've got this vision from Indiana Jones running through my head of what it looks like in the basement, with rows and rows of crates holding precious artifacts from antiquity.

I was disappointed to see Rodin's Thinker in one of the museum rotundas. He used to be in front of Meyer Library in the heart of campus. We used to climb up onto his base and goofed around. Now, it's a "Please Do Not Touch" art piece, enclosed all around by walls. He looks sad now and is no doubt contemplating his return to the great outdoors.

Thanks to Patience and Jeff for giving a great tour of the museum today! Now for some photos.

Group photo

Cantor Center for Visual Arts

Where's Heather? There she is!

Raphael, Stanford Fellow

He's here, but he's not really here

Floor piece

Amy photographs

Atrium

Patience next to the Sorceress

Native American Art

100 Poets Card Game

Zoom

Leland Jr's Death Mask

Early Palm Pilot

Rodin sculpture

Patience and the Thinker

Age of Bronze in 3 sizes

DVF at the Gates of Hell

Enter The Photo Gallery

Reader Comments

Looks like a very interesting museum. I enjoyed your photos and am amazed they let you take them! I don't museums around Boston, at least the Museum of Fine Arts, lets you.

--posted by Jason @ Wednesday, September 17 2003, 9:15 am EDT

Yeah, it's nice that Stanford allows you to take photos. Other places that I've been in -- SFMOMA for example -- don't let you do that. Boo hoo!

-adam

--posted by Adam @ Wednesday, September 17 2003, 19:15 pm EDT

You can take pictures at the Art Institute of Chicago.
It is a great museum.

http://andyx.com/chicago/P1010024.JPG-ix.htm

--posted by Andy @ Wednesday, October 22 2003, 22:07 pm EDT