322. BIRGER SANDZÉN. Landscape: Cottonwood Grove, oil on Board.

BIRGER SANDZÉN Sweden/USA 1871-1954 Landscape: Cottonwood Grove Signed Birger Sandzén. Oil on Board, 30.5 x 40.5 cm.
Signed, titled and dated 1919 on the reverse.

PROVENANCE Dr. Christian Ostergren, Lindsborg, Kansas (purchased directly from the artist in January 1920), then in Swedish private ownership The painting is registered at the Birger Sandzén Memorial Gallery in Lindsborg, Kansas, USA.

Stockholm's Auktionsverk would like to extend a warm thank you to Ronald Michael, museum director at the Birger Sandzén Memorial Gallery, for help with the cataloging of this work "The most famous Swedish-American artist of his time." Birger Sandzén's entire artistry is so associated with Kansas and its stunningly beautiful landscape. He depicted in spectacular paintings the Smoky Hill River Valley, Rocky Mountain National Park, Yellowstone National Park and as in the current painting Cottonwood Grove. His best period takes place in the late 1910s and early 1920s.

The Västgöta son Sandzén first studied in Stockholm at the Artists' Association's school for both Anders Zorn and Richard Bergh, but already at the age of 23 he came to Bethany College in the settler community of Lindsborg in Kansas, to teach humanities subjects and take up the position as head of the school's art education.

His impressive artistic work is represented in every major museum in the United States, including the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, the Brooklyn Museum of Art, the Museum of Fine Art in Santa Fe, the Library of Congress, the Chicago Art Institute, the Denver Art Museum, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art. He is also represented at the National Museum in Stockholm.