Harry W. Anderson, also known as Hunk Anderson, (October 5, 1922 – February 7, 2018) was an American businessman, art collector and philanthropist. He was the co-founder of Saga Foods Co., a food company for college dormitories. With his wife, Mary Margaret Anderson, he donated works of art to the

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) is a modern and contemporary art museum located in San Francisco, California. A nonprofit organization, SFMOMA holds an internationally recognized collection of modern and contemporary art, and was ...

and to the Iris & B. Gerald Cantor Center for Visual Arts at

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...

Early life and career

Anderson was born on October 5, 1922, in Corning, New York. He was a first-generation American, as his father was born in Sweden and his mother in Norway. Anderson played football in high school, and it was then that he took the nickname "Hunk", after

Heartley Anderson Heartley William "Hunk" Anderson (September 22, 1898 – April 24, 1978) was an American football player and coach. He served as the head football coach at the Saint Louis University (1928–1929), University of Notre Dame (1931–1933), and Nort ...

. He graduated from

Hobart and William Smith Colleges Hobart and William Smith Colleges are Private college, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts colleges in Geneva, New York. They trace their origins to Geneva Academy established in 1797. Students can choose from 45 maj ...

. Anderson co-founded Saga Foods Co., a food company for college dormitories, while he was still in college. The company moved into an office on

Sand Hill Road Sand Hill Road, often shortened to just "Sand Hill" or "SHR", is an arterial road in western Silicon Valley, California, running through Palo Alto, Menlo Park, and Woodside, notable for its concentration of venture capital companies. The road h ...

. It made "more than 400 million meals a year across the United States" in 1973, and it became a public company in the same decade, until it merged with

Marriott Marriott may refer to: People *Marriott (surname) Corporations * Marriott Corporation, founded as Hot Shoppes, Inc. in 1927; split into Marriott International and Host Marriott Corporation in 1993 * Marriott International, international hotel ...

Art collection and donations

With his wife, Anderson became a significant art collector in the 1960s. They first collected works of art by

Claude Monet Oscar-Claude Monet (, , ; 14 November 1840 – 5 December 1926) was a French painter and founder of impressionist painting who is seen as a key precursor to modernism, especially in his attempts to paint nature as he perceived it. During ...

Pablo Picasso Pablo Ruiz Picasso (25 October 1881 – 8 April 1973) was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist and Scenic design, theatre designer who spent most of his adult life in France. One of the most influential artists of the 20th ce ...

Camille Pissarro Jacob Abraham Camille Pissarro ( , ; 10 July 1830 – 13 November 1903) was a Danish-French Impressionist and Neo-Impressionist painter born on the island of Saint Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands, St Thomas (now in the US Virgin Islands, but t ...

Henri Matisse Henri Émile Benoît Matisse (; 31 December 1869 – 3 November 1954) was a French visual artist, known for both his use of colour and his fluid and original draughtsmanship. He was a draughtsman, printmaker, and sculptor, but is known prima ...

Emile Nolde Emil Nolde (born Hans Emil Hansen; 7 August 1867 – 13 April 1956) was a German-Danish painter and printmaker. He was one of the first Expressionists, a member of Die Brücke, and was one of the first oil painting and watercolor painters of the ...

, Arthur Dove, Georgia O'Keeffe, and Marsden Hartley. They subsequently purchased works by Alexander Calder, Vija Celmins, Richard Diebenkorn,

Jean Dubuffet Jean Philippe Arthur Dubuffet (31 July 1901 – 12 May 1985) was a French Painting, painter and sculpture, sculptor. His idealistic approach to aesthetics embraced so-called "low art" and eschewed traditional standards of beauty in favor of what ...

, Sam Francis,

Alberto Giacometti Alberto Giacometti (, , ; 10 October 1901 – 11 January 1966) was a Swiss sculptor, painter, draftsman and printmaker. Beginning in 1922, he lived and worked mainly in Paris but regularly visited his hometown Borgonovo to see his family and ...

, Adolph Gottlieb,

David Hockney David Hockney (born 9 July 1937) is an English painter, draftsman, printmaker, stage designer, and photographer. As an important contributor to the pop art movement of the 1960s, he is considered one of the most influential British artists o ...

, Jasper Johns, Willem de Kooning, Joan Mitchell,

Jackson Pollock Paul Jackson Pollock (; January 28, 1912August 11, 1956) was an American painter and a major figure in the abstract expressionist movement. He was widely noticed for his " drip technique" of pouring or splashing liquid household paint onto a hor ...

Martin Puryear Martin L. Puryear (born May 23, 1941) is an American artist known for his devotion to traditional craft. Working in wood and bronze, among other media, his reductive technique and meditative approach challenge the physical and poetic boundaries ...

Saul Steinberg Saul Steinberg (June 15, 1914 – May 12, 1999) was a Romanian-American artist, best known for his work for ''The New Yorker'', most notably ''View of the World from 9th Avenue''. He described himself as "a writer who draws". Biography Ste ...

, Clyfford Still and Wayne Thiebaud. By 2000, the Andersons had donated works from their collection by Jim Dine,

Roy Lichtenstein Roy Fox Lichtenstein (; October 27, 1923 – September 29, 1997) was an American pop artist. During the 1960s, along with Andy Warhol, Jasper Johns, and James Rosenquist among others, he became a leading figure in the new art movement. Hi ...

Robert Rauschenberg Milton Ernest "Robert" Rauschenberg (October 22, 1925 – May 12, 2008) was an American painter and graphic artist whose early works anticipated the Pop art movement. Rauschenberg is well known for his Combines (1954–1964), a group of artwor ...

, Frank Stella, and

Andy Warhol Andy Warhol (; born Andrew Warhola Jr.; August 6, 1928 – February 22, 1987) was an American visual artist, film director, and producer who was a leading figure in the visual art movement known as pop art. His works explore the relationsh ...

to the

. Between October 7, 2000, and January 15, 2001, the museum hosted ''Celebrating Modern Art: The Anderson Collection'', an exhibition over three floors of "more than 300 paintings, sculptures and drawings by nearly 140 artists." Other works donated by the Andersons went to the Oakland Museum of California, the

San Jose Museum of Art The San José Museum of Art (SJMA) is a modern and contemporary art museum in downtown San Jose, downtown San Jose, California, United States. Founded in 1969, the museum holds a permanent collection with an emphasis on West Coast of the United Sta ...

, and the

Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco (FAMSF), comprising the de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park and the Legion of Honor in Lincoln Park, is the largest public arts institution in the city of San Francisco. The permanent collection of the ...

. In 2014, the Andersons donated 121 works of art to the Iris & B. Gerald Cantor Center for Visual Arts at

. They included paintings by Philip Guston, Franz Kline, Mark Rothko, and David Smith.

Personal life and death

Anderson married Mary Margaret "Moo" Ransford in July 1950. Moo Anderson was active in the local arts, and between 1978 and 1984, she was a co-owner of 3EP Ltd. Press in Palo Alto, California. They had a daughter, Mary Patricia, and they resided in Menlo Park, California. Harry Anderson died on February 7, 2018.

References

External links

*
Harry W. Anderson and Mary Margaret Anderson: An Oral History
" Stanford Historical Society Oral History Program, 2016. {{DEFAULTSORT:Anderson, Harry W. 1922 births 2018 deaths American people of Norwegian descent American people of Swedish descent People from Corning, New York People from Menlo Park, California Hobart and William Smith Colleges alumni American company founders Businesspeople from California American art collectors American philanthropists Stanford University people 20th-century American businesspeople Art in the San Francisco Bay Area

Early life and career

Art collection and donations

Personal life and death

References

Further reading

External links