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Birger Sandzén was born in Sweden and studied in his native country under celebrated artist and printmaker Anders Zorn before journeying to France to continue his education in pointillist master George Seurat’s studio. While in France, Sandzén took advantage of the opportunity to study the color and paint application techniques of the Impressionists and Postimpressionists. After reading a book about the struggles of Swedish immigrants in Lindsborg, Kansas, Sandzén emigrated to the United States in 1894. He settled in Lindsborg and took a professorship at Bethany College. Sandzén would go on to travel widely in the American West, where he painted landscapes that are, in a way, woodcuts—a medium in which he excelled. The 1936 painting, Autumnal Landscape, epitomizes Sandzén’s mature style as it evolved from Seurat’s pointillist practice of setting dots of color, one against another, and allowing the optics of the viewer’s eye to mix them. Sandzén employs a vibrant palette and textured application that makes the paint itself vibrate across the canvas. Light resonates with shadow; smooth resonates with rough. You can almost hear the seasons changing from summer to fall. Despite their vast stylistic differences, I always perceive Sandzén’s trees as I see Thomas Cole’s—they have an individual identity and soul that makes the viewer want to get to know them.

-James D. Balestrieri