09/04/2026
Color us impressed! This month’s First Friday explores a work by an artist some call the “American Van Gogh.” Swedish-born artist Birger Sandzén (1871–1954) was inspired to come to America after reading “In Sweden: Memories and Pictures from the Land of My Fathers,” a book written by the president of Bethany College. Sandzén wrote to the president and secured a job at the college in Lindsborg, Kansas, where he moved in 1894. Enamored with the vast prairie landscapes of the American West, he would focus his eye on nature’s majesty as his subject matter for subsequent decades.
His education was rooted in the foundations of post-Impressionism, learning to paint landscapes “en plein air.” He also studied with artists such as Anders Zorn (1860–1920), Richard Bergh (1858–1919) and Edmond Aman-Jean (1858–1936), whom influenced his use of color and light. Works like this untitled landscape from the 1910s also show his use of the pointillist technique. Over the course of his prolific career, he created 2,700 oil paintings, about half as many watercolors, and 328 print designs.
This work is currently on view through September 13 in the exhibition “My Country ‘Tis of Thee: Celebrating American Art & Design.”
🖼️“Untitled,” ca. 1911
Birger Sandzén (American, 1871–1954)
Oil on canvas
32 x 44 in.
Gift of Arthur I. Appleton
🎥Watch our Art Minutes video to learn more:
Learn more about this early 20th century landscape by Swedish-born ...
