Birger Sandzén Distant Horizons

Joining the main exhibition, The Morning Dip, on the ASI campus this summer is an exhibition of select works by Birger Sandzén (1871–1954)—a Swedish American artist, educator, and promoter of the arts who built a successful life and career in Lindsborg, Kansas.

Although Sandzén’s daily ritual didn’t always include a dip in a lake, as is the case with the photo subjects in The Morning Dip, it did include time outside, sketching his natural surrounds. He would then take these drawings back to his studio to work up into finished oils, watercolors and templates for prints. His recognizable style interprets the landscapes of the United States—from the broad horizon and intense light of the prairies to the rugged mountains and deep shadows of the southwest. Sandzén was a prolific artist who completed more than 2,600 oil paintings, 500 watercolors, and over 33,000 prints over the span of his career.

Born in Blidsberg, Sweden on February 5, 1871, Sandzén grew up in a home where efforts in music, art and literature were appreciated and encouraged. After completing general schooling, he moved to Stockholm to pursue art where he studied under well-known Swedish artists Anders Zorn and Richard Bergh, as part of the Artists' League School, or Konstnärsförbundet.

His Konstnärsförbundet mentors taught and promoted a modern philosophy of art, about the ‘here-and-now' and importance of ordinary people’s lives; about their country’s landscape and the people in it. It was a methodology that Sandzén brought with him to the States, and can be seen in his own artwork as well as his teaching.

Throughout his life, Sandzén was an avid seeker of ideas and impressions that would contribute to his understanding of nature, which he often called the “great teacher.” His decision early in life to become an artist was challenged when he decided to depart his native Sweden in 1894 for a teaching position in Lindsborg, Kansas. He shared his excitement of his first sight of Kansas, writing in a local newspaper in 1915:

Prolific artist Birger Sandzén amid some of his 33,000+ works.

Sandzén went on to describe the landscape of Kansas as a whole "new world." While it was new to Sandzén and other Swedish immigrants at the time, it is important to remember and recognize this landscape has been home to Indigenous people for centuries, both past and present.

This exhibition, Birger Sandzén: Distant Horizons, includes several artworks recently acquired into the ASI Collection through the generous donation of Dr. James Kaplan. The exhibition also features a handful of impressive, large paintings on temporary loan from the Birger Sandzén Memorial Gallery in Lindsborg, Kansas. This exhibition was produced by ASI in collaboration with the expertise of Dr. James Kaplan and staff at the Birger Sandzén Memorial Gallery in Lindsborg, Kansas, as well as support from ASI’s members and donors.