Birger Sandzen (1871-1954) Kansas / Colorado Artist Image Size: 40.5 x 48 Frame Size: 49.5 x 57 Medium: Oil Untitled "ROLLING HILLS" Has his daughter's name on the verso. This painting was donated to Bethany college by Birger's Daughter. They owned it for many years and then about 8 years ago it was sent to auction. It sold to an art dealer from Santa Fe, I was acquired from a gallery by a friend of mine who has owned it since that time. Biography Birger Sandzen (1871-1954) Born Blidsberg, Sweden, Feb. 5, 1871; died Lindsborg, June 19, 1954. Painter, specialized in landscapes. Etcher. Engraver. Lithographer. Teacher. Attended the College and Academy of Skara as a pupil of Olof Erlandsson. After graduation from Skara College, Sandzén spent a semester at Lund University attending art history lectures and continuing the study of French. Following Lund University he went to the technical high school at Stockholm, where he studied perspective and form drawing. Sandzén joined a group of young artists and they rented a studio at Anders Zorn's suggestion. They received instruction from Zorn as well as Richard Bergh, a well-known portrait painter and Per Hasselberg, one of Sweden's best sculptors. Sandzén then went to Paris to study with Aman Jean, where he began to associate with American students in the French studies. On returning home in 1894, a family friend sent Sandzén a booklet about Bethany College, Lindsborg and the town called "Little Sweden." Sandzén moved to Lindsborg in 1894 to teach French, voice, art history, drawing and painting at Bethany College where he remained on the faculty until 1946. He first painted in the Colorado Springs, CO area in 1916, and became a frequent visitor to Santa Fe and Taos, NM beginning in 1918. Sandzén spent the summers of 1923-24 teaching at the Broadmoor Academy in Colorado Springs (presently the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center). Sandzén also taught at Chappell House (the forerunner to the Denver Art Museum), Utah State Agricultural College, Stephens College, the University of Michigan, and the 188 Kansas City Art Institute. Sandzén's style of painting is unusual in its thick and heavy application of impasto in bold and bright color combinations, interpreting the landscape of the western United States. He is known for very colorful renderings of mountain lakes with boulders, cypress and aspen trees and moonrises along waterways. Sandzén was an important advocate for art in the region, spending time talking to people about art, organizing exhibitions and establishing art clubs. He donated artwork to the local art club to help raise money for the purchasing of art books for the library, the financing of exhibitions, and the occasional awarding of a scholarship. He painted murals for the Halstead Post Office, Where Kit Carson Camped, in 1941, for the Lindsborg Post Office, Smoky River, in 1938, and for the Belleville Post Office, Kansas Stream, in 1939. He illustrated three books, With Brush and Pencil (1905), In the Mountains, (1925), The Smoky Valley, (1922). SOURCES: Susan Craig, "Biographical Dictionary of Kansas Artists (active before 1945)" Lindquist, Emory Kempton. Birger Sandzén: An Illustrated Biography. (Lawrence University Press of Kansas, 1993); American Magazine of Art, (Jan. 1927); International Studio ( Apr. 1923); Kansas Teacher (Nov. 1927); Greenough, Charles P. The Graphic Work of Birger Sandzén. (Lindsborg : Bethany College, 1952); Fielding, Mantle. Mantle Fielding’s Dictionary of American Painters, Sculptors and Engravers, with an Addendum containing Corrections and Additional Material on the Original Entries. Compiled by James F. Carr. New York: James F. Carr Publ., 1965.; Newlin, Gertrude Dix (Development of Art in Kansas. Typed Manuscript, 1951); Sain, Lydia. Kansas Artists, compiled by Lydia Sain from 1932 to 1948. Typed Manuscript, 1948.; WW26-27; American Art Annual. New York: American Federation of Arts, 1898-194727; Who’s Who in American Art. New York: American Federation of Arts, 1936- v.1=1936-37 v.3= 1941-42 v.2=1938-39 v.4=1940-47. 1, 2, 3, 4; Reinbach, Edna, comp. “Kansas Art and Artists”, in Collections of the Kansas State Historical Society. v. 17, 1928. p. 571-585.; A &C KS por il.; Dunbier, Paul. The Dunbier Value Guide; Over 1200 Painters in the Western U.S. Before 1920. Scottsdale: Altamira Press, 1981.; Dawdy, Doris Ostrander. Artists of the American West: A Biographical Dictionary. Chicago: Swallow Press, 1974. Wiebe, Joanna K. “Kansans Cared About their New Deal Art”, in Wichita Eagle Beacon, May 21, 1972. p.1E & 7E-----. “Local Legends Live in Art”, in Wichita Eagle Beacon, May 22, 1972. p.1A & 3A-----. “Age Enhances Fort Scott Mural”, in Wichita Eagle Beacon, May 23, 1972. p.1A & 8A-----. “Halstead Legend Perpetuated”, in Wichita Eagle Beacon, May 24, 1972. p.1A & 16A -----. “Scenics, Murals and Lithographs Included in Kansas New Deal Art”, in Wichita Eagle Beacon, May 25, 1972. p.15A.; Samuels, Peggy. Illustrated Biographical Encyclopedia of Artists of the American West. Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Co., 1976.; Snow, Florence. “Kansas Art and Artists”, in Kansas Teacher Aug-Sept. 1927, p.18-19; Oct. 1927, p.10, 12; Nov. 1927, p.11-12; Dec. 1927, p.7-8; Jan. 1928, p. 14-15; Feb. 1928, p.20-21; Mar. 1928, p.10-12; Apr. 1928, p. 16-17; May 1928, p.14, 16; June-July 1928, p.13-14.; American Art Annual. New York: American Federation of Arts, 1898-194724/12/18/20/22; KAC; Dawdy 2: Dawdy, Doris Ostrander. Artists of the American West: A Biographical Dictionary. Volume 2. Chicago: Swallow Press, 1981.; Annual Exhibition of the Artists of Kansas City and Vicinity (Kansas City Art Institute, 1915-21) 1915, 1917, 1920-21; Midwestern Artists’ Exhibition (Kansas City: Kansas City Art Institute, 1920-1942 Mines, Cynthia. For the Sake of Art: The Story of an Art Movement in Kansas. s.l. Mines, 1979.) 1922-23, 1925. 1929-33, 1935-40; Beach; Porter, Dean A, Teresa Hayes Ebie, Suzan Campbell. Taos Artists and Their Patrons, 1898-1950. South Bend, IN: Snite Museum of Art, 1999.; Bruner, Ronald Irwin. New Deal Art Workers in Colorado, Kansas and Nebraska. Thesis. University of Denver, 1979.; 100 Years of Art; This and over 1,750 other biographies can be found in Biographical Dictionary of Kansas Artists (active before 1945) compiled by Susan V. Craig, Art & Architecture Librarian at University of Kansas. Born in Bildsberg, Sweden, Sven Sandzen had a long distinguished career as an art professor at Bethany College in Lindsborg, Kansas and as an impressionist landscape painter. His work evolved from Pointillism to a very personal style of bold color and with masses of paint, akin to that of Vincent Van Gogh and Fauve painters Paul Cezanne and Henri Matisse. His early work was Tonalist in style in the manner of Scandinavian Romanticism, but after he began taking trips to Colorado, where he created many paintings of the Rocky Mountains, his work became much more Expressionist and Fauve or brightly colored. He was the son of a Lutheran minister and received his art education in Europe, graduating in 1890 from the College of Skara in Sweden and then taking further study at the University of Lund. He was the pupil of Anders Zorn and studied painting at the Artists' League of Stockholm and then with Aman-Jean in Paris. In 1894, he emigrated to Kansas where until 1945 he was professor at Bethany College and from then until his death, professor emeritus. Not only did he paint in the West including Yellowstone National Park in 1930, he amassed a personal collection of over 500 western paintings and drawings. At Bethany College, he organized the first exhibition of Swedish-American art held at that Swedish institution. The exhibit included paintings by himself and his colleagues. He was also active in the Swedish-American Society in Chicago. In 1916, he first went to Colorado and in the mid 1920s, taught some classes at the Broadmore Hotel. He also taught at Denver College and at Utah State College. From 1918, he became a regular visitor to Santa Fe and Taos, New Mexico, and in 1922, exhibited with the Taos Society of Artists in New York. During the Depression, he was a W.P.A. artist and was the author of a book titled With Brush and Pencil. "He was also a founding member of the Prairie Printmakers Society. In the 1930s, a handful of intaglio and block print artists from Wichita, Lawrence and El Dorado, Kansas met with Sandzen in his studio and under his direction created one of America's most successful print societies". (McCraw) Sources include: Peggy and Harold Samuels, Encyclopedia of Artists of the American West Fred McCraw, Art Writer of Kansas City and Researcher SVEN BIRGER SANDZÉN (1871-1954) Birger Sandzen had a long distinguished career as an art professor at Bethany College in Lindsborg, Kansas and as an impressionist landscape painter. He is best known for his modernist style with masses of paint, akin to that of Vincent Van Gogh and Paul Cezanne, and for Rocky Mountain Landscape subjects. His early work is Tonalist in style in the manner of Scandanavian Romanticism, but after he began taking trips to Colorado, his work became much more Expressionist and brightly colored. Sven Birger Sandzen was born in Blidsberg, Sweden to Clara Elizabeth and Johan Peter Sandzen. His mother had studied drawing and his father, a minister, enjoyed writing poetry and playing the violin. When Birger's parents noticed his artistic inclination, they asked a young minister to give drawing lessons to the nine year old. At the age of ten, he attended the College and Academy of Skara. Here his drawing and painting lessons continued under Olof Erlandsson, a graduate of the Royal Academy at Stockholm. After graduation from Skara College, Sandzen spent a semester at Lund University attending art history lectures and continuing the study of French. Following Lund University he went to the technical