Another Signpost

Perspectives from The Artist's Road

Creek at Moonrise* ca. 1921 Birger Sandzen

We’ve written before about the unexpected sign at Exit 222 on Interstate 80 in Nebraska announcing the Robert Henri Museum (see Signposts - Perspectives No. 194). It turns out that the Robert Henri who studied in France, taught in New York and wrote the classic book The Art Spirit, was originally from the small town of Cozad, Nebraska. There is another surprising sign that has become familiar to travelers crossing Kansas on Interstate 70 which announces, “We buy Birger Sandzén Paintings.” This is truly a sign of the increasing appreciation and interest in the Swedish artist’s work by knowledgable art collectors.

Paintings by Birger Sandzén have broken records recently at auction (a sale of a 60 x 80” canvas in 2011 topped $600,000.) Sandzén (1871 - 1954) studied art in Stockholm under Anders Zorn and in Paris under Edmond François Aman-Jean. It was Aman-Jean who introduced him to pointillism and the work of Aman-J…