Birger Sandzen: Colors of the West May 1, 2010

Sven Birger Sandzen (1871-1954), a Swedish-born artist, trained in Paris and participated in its famous fin de siecle milieu. In 1894, he immigrated to the United States and settled in the center of the American prairie in Lindsborg, Kansas, where he was invited to become an art professor at Bethany College. Considered a post-Impressionist for his use of color and expressionist in technique, Sandzen vibrant and dynamic paintings of prairie and western landscapes from Kansas to the California coast have been relatively unknown outside the Midwest until recently.