A scientific paper published in PNAS reveals that Jackson Pollock's 1948 masterpiece *Number 1A* contains an extinct variety of manganese blue paint. Using Raman spectroscopy, researchers from Stanford University, City College of New York, and MoMA's conservation department identified the synthetic pigment, which was popular in the 20th century but phased out in the 1990s due to environmental concerns.
Stanford University's libraries and Cantor Arts Center have acquired the archives of Filipina American artist Pacita Abad, who died in 2004 at age 58. The 120-foot-long collection, a gift from her estate managed by her husband Jack Garrity, includes correspondence with artists like Faith Ringgold, photographs from her childhood in Manila, and materials from her global travels and exhibitions. The acquisition comes with a donation to support processing, and is seen as a homecoming for Abad, who left the Philippines in 1969 after student protests and later settled in the Bay Area, where she studied and began her art career.
Iris Cantor, the prolific art collector and philanthropist whose patronage transformed major American institutions, has died at the age of 95 in Palm Beach, Florida. Alongside her late husband, B. Gerald Cantor, she amassed one of the world's most significant private collections of Auguste Rodin sculptures, eventually donating hundreds of works to museums including the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Brooklyn Museum. Her death marks the end of an era for a donor whose name is synonymous with some of the most prominent gallery spaces and wings in the United States.
Singer-songwriter Jewel, a Grammy nominee and former sculpture student, will debut her first solo exhibition titled "Matriclysm: An Archeology of Connections Lost" at Salone Verde in Venice from May 10 to November 22, 2025, coinciding with the 62nd Venice Biennale. The show, presented by Crystal Bridges Museum of Art and organized by curator-at-large Joe Thompson, features new paintings, sculptures, tapestries, installations, and sound works exploring feminine power, climate change, and universal connection. Highlights include a massive plaster sculpture of a pregnant woman created with artist Patrick Bongoy, a glass installation produced at the Toledo Museum of Art, and works incorporating data from NASA, NOAA, Stanford University, and UC Berkeley.
The Cantor Arts Center at Stanford University has opened a new iteration of its Archive Rooms series, featuring two concurrent exhibitions: "Archive Room: Ester Hernandez" and "Archive Room: Ruth Asawa." The Hernandez exhibition showcases seldom-exhibited artwork, ephemera, writing, and family photographs from the artist's archive, including her iconic print "Sun Mad" (1982) addressing pesticide contamination, alongside materials documenting her community-based practice and activism. The Asawa exhibition highlights her arts advocacy through teaching materials, photographs, and projects from the Alvarado School Arts Workshop, an artist-in-residence program she co-founded in 1968 that operated in 50 San Francisco public schools.
Crystal Bridges Museum will present an exhibition dedicated to singer-songwriter Jewel during the Venice Biennale, running from May 10 to November 22 at the Salone Verde, near Fondazione Prada. Titled “Matriclysm: An Archeology of Connections Lost,” the show is organized by Crystal Bridges curator-at-large Joe Thompson and features paintings from Jewel's “Ceremony” series, a tapestry, and three large-scale sculptures—including “Heart of the Ocean,” an eight-foot-tall piece that uses live oceanic data from NASA and Stanford University to control 60,000 programmable lights. The exhibition explores themes of feminine memory, matriarchy, and connection.
Kyle Stephan has been appointed the new Steven and Lisa Munster Tananbaum Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at The Block Museum at Northwestern University. A curator, scholar, and educator with expertise in global contemporary art, time-based media, and interdisciplinary practice, Stephan was inspired to pursue curatorial work after witnessing art's power to activate people and communities while working as a studio manager for artist Lynn Hershman Leeson in the 1990s San Francisco Bay Area. She holds a Ph.D. in art and art history from Stanford University and previously curated the first U.S. survey of Fluxus artist Wolf Vostell at Harvard Art Museums.
Stanford University has acquired the archives of Filipina American artist Pacita Abad, a gift from the Pacita Abad Art Estate that also includes funding to catalog 120 linear feet of archival materials—photographs, correspondence, exhibition records, and personal artifacts. The archive will be stewarded by Stanford University Libraries' Bowes Art and Architecture Library in collaboration with the Cantor Arts Center, and is expected to be available to students and scholars within a year. The acquisition follows Abad's posthumous traveling retrospective that opened at the Walker Art Center in 2023, which brought her prolific 32-year practice to the attention of U.S. institutions.
On January 8, 2026, Asia Society Seattle will host a private tour of the exhibition "Spirit House" at the Henry Art Gallery at the University of Washington, led by Associate Curator Swagato Chakravorty. The event is invite-only for the society's Advisory Council, Corporate Members, Groundbreaker and Innovator members, and donors. The exhibition, organized by the Cantor Arts Center at Stanford University, features 34 contemporary artists of Asian descent exploring themes of life, death, spirituality, and diaspora through works that engage with spirit houses and ancestral connections.
Stanford University's Cantor Arts Center and the Anderson Collection are opening a diverse slate of exhibitions for fall and winter. Highlights include "Shahzia Sikander: Collective Behavior," the first major solo show of the museum's Asian American Art Initiative, featuring 44 works spanning the Pakistani-American artist's 30-year career, including mosaics, paintings, sculptures, and a digital animation. The Anderson Collection presents Alteronce Gumby's first West Coast museum exhibition, showcasing nine mixed-media works that use paint, glass, and semi-precious stones to create cosmic perspectives. Other shows include "Edmonia Lewis: Indelible Impressions" and "Cunning Folk: Witchcraft, Magic and Occult Knowledge."
Two concurrent exhibitions at the Amon Carter Museum of American Art in Fort Worth explore the American West from distinct perspectives. "Richard Avedon at the Carter" marks the 40th anniversary of Avedon's landmark 1985 series "In the American West," featuring 124 unflinching portraits of working-class subjects like oilfield workers and ranchers, alongside archival photographs by Laura Wilson that show the project's human side. Across the hall, "East of the Pacific: Making Histories of Asian American Art" presents 48 works from the Cantor Arts Center at Stanford University, spanning from the 1849 gold rush to the present, highlighting Asian American artists including Bernice Bing, Roger Shimomura, Chiura Obata, and Toshiko Takaezu.
The Cantor Arts Center at Stanford University has launched two major exhibitions that challenge traditional perceptions of nature and craft. 'Animal, Vegetable, nor Mineral' features the multimedia work of Miljohn Ruperto, utilizing virtual reality, sculpture, and animation to critique how humans categorize and expand into both physical and digital landscapes. Simultaneously, 'Jeremy Frey: Woven' presents over 30 intricate baskets by the MacArthur Fellow and Passamaquoddy artist, marking the final and only West Coast stop for this career-spanning survey.
Hauser & Wirth will open a new gallery in Palo Alto, California, in spring 2026, marking its first location in Northern California and its third in the state. The gallery will occupy a historic post office building at 201-205 Hamilton Avenue, near Stanford University, offering 2,600 square feet of exhibition space, a bookshop, and a design overseen by architect Luis Laplace. The expansion follows the gallery's existing venues in Los Angeles and comes nearly a decade after its major downtown L.A. complex opened in 2016.
Hauser & Wirth announced on July 30 that it will open a new location in Palo Alto, California, in spring 2025. The 2,600-square-foot space, located in a former post office on Hamilton Avenue near Stanford University and tech giants like Meta and Google, will be the Swiss mega-gallery's 17th location worldwide and its third in California, joining two existing spaces in Los Angeles. The gallery's president, Marc Payot, cited the Bay Area's dedicated collector community and museums as key reasons for the expansion.