On opening day in January, the Cantor Center’s galleries and terraces will be filled with treasures from the museum’s permanent collection. Among them: an Egyptian mummy (the so-called chantress of Amon); pop sculptor Claes Oldenburg’s curvy pink Soft Inverted Q; and, of course, the Rodins that put Stanford on the art world map.
But there will also be three special shows on opening day. One features the finalists in the museum’s architectural design competition. Another, Before and After Science, shows the influence of scientific advances on motion-picture pioneer Eadweard Muybridge’s photography. The centerpiece exhibition is Picasso: Graphic Magician, a selection of 120 prints from the Norton Simon Museum in San Diego. The center’s new wing has generous gallery space earmarked for such temporary exhibitions, an important source of fresh air for a museum.
The center’s premiere includes two open-house events: Stanford Day for alumni, students, faculty and staff on January 23; and Community Day for the general public on January 24.
The museum’s fund-raising campaign kicked off in 1991 with a $5 million gift from Carmen Christensen, a longtime friend of the museum. The Committee for Art at Stanford, the museum’s membership group, contributed $1.5 million, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) allocated almost $7.5 million to renovate the century-old museum building. In 1994, the project turned a corner: philanthropists Iris and B. Gerald Cantor pledged $10 million. (The couple had previously given Stanford more than 180 works by Rodin, which led to the creation in 1985 of the sculpture garden named in honor of Gerald Cantor, a financier who died in 1996.) Some 700 individuals participated in the drive that ultimately raised more than $42 million.
Now that the center is finished, plans are afoot for a $20 million endowment campaign to expand the museum’s holdings and programs. Picasso is only the beginning. –D.M.
