Birger Sandzén painting plein air in Sweden in 1893.



Portrait of Rosa Bragoli, 1891, oil on canvas, 21-1/2 x 16-1/2 inches, painted while studying in Stockholm with Anders Zorn, Greenough Trust, Sandzén Gallery



St. Cloud, oil on canvas, based on a watercolor sketch painted of a park west of Paris, gift of Elizabeth Sundberg, Sandzén Gallery

Study in Stockholm and Paris

Instead, kindly fate dramatically changed young Sandzen's life when he learned of a class being formed by Anders Zorn (1862-1920), one of the Sweden's greatest painters and etchers. Sandzén hurried to meet Zorn, fellow painting teacher Richard Bergh (1858-1919), and sculpture and drawing teacher Per Hasselberg (1850-1941). In the autumn of 1891, he was accepted as one of six men and two women to study in a small studio on Nörra Smedjegatan in Stockholm.

As the number of students increased, a larger studio on Mäster Samuelsgatan was rented and paid for by the class. In class, Zorn taught Sandzén to have a feeling for color and to paint broadly and vigorously without being afraid.

The class later became known as the Konstnärsförbundet (Artists League). When Zorn could no longer continue to teach the class, Birger was selected by his fellow students to join Bergh in establishing rules and regulations for the Konstnärsförbundet School.

At the end of his studies, Zorn and Bergh recommended that Sandzén complete his painting studies in Paris. After a period of compulsory military training and a visit to his parents and family at Järpås, Sweden, Sandzén left early in l894 for Paris where he lived in the Hotel de Brest on La Rue de Rennes. At the suggestion of Richard Bergh, he began painting in the studio of Edmond-François Aman-Jean (1860-1935), a painter who had exhibited his works and won distinguished prizes in many leading European galleries and at L'Ecole des Beaux-Arts. Aman-Jean was closely associated with Ernest Laurent (1859-1929) and Georges Seurat (1859-1891) in promoting impressionism, including pointillism. Aman-Jean and Seurat had shared the large studio into which Sandzén was accepted for painting classes in 1894.

The young Sandzén profited greatly from his experience in the class and the teaching of Aman-Jean. Of primary importance was introduction to the pointillist approach to painting. His study in Paris was enhanced by the cosmopolitan life of the city, salon shows, visits to museums and concerts.

Later, upon arrival in Kansas, his painting expressed the pointillist manner of impressionism as late as l913. His study of color and light associated with pointillism is clearly evident in paintings which are in the gallery's collections. After 1913 one can observe that he is beginning to combine the pointillist palette of colors with a brushstroke that will later become as vigorous as that of his teacher, Anders Zorn. Yet his painting would also continue throughout the rest of his life to present pure colors that blend together when seen from a distance producing a luminous effect found in pointillist painting.