Birger Sandzen is a hard artist not to like — especially for viewers in Colorado.The Swedish native devoted much of his career in the early 20th century to capturing the state’s dramatic vistas, with an appealing style characterized by lively colors and energetic, Van Gogh-like paint handling.
Despite his extensive ties to Colorado, there is no evidence that he was ever featured in a solo exhibition in Denver, an odd omission that will be corrected at long last this weekend.
David Cook Fine Art, one of the country’s leading Sandzen dealers, is hosting a two-day, museum-quality survey of 45 of the artist’s oil paintings, watercolors and prints dating from 1903 through about 1945.
The gallery has borrowed about half the pieces from public and private collections, including two large-scale paintings and eight other selections from the Birger Sandzen Memorial Gallery in Lindsborg, Kan.
The show sprang from an initiative begun about three years ago by the Sandzen Gallery to boost the national profile of the little-known museum and raise $3 million for a much-needed overhaul and upgrade of its building on the Bethany College campus.
The museum, which was established in 1957 by the artist’s daughter and son-in-law, is the largest repository of the artist’s output, with a collection of about 10,000 works.
As part of that continuing outreach effort, which was spurred by the museum’s 50th anniversary in 2007-08, Clay Myers-Bowman, director of development, has traveled to cities around the country with ties to Sandzen and his work.
One of his first stops in January was Denver, because of the artist’s many trips to Colorado and his teaching stints at the Broadmoor Academy in Colorado Springs in 1923-24 and at the Chappell House, a forerunner of the Denver Art Museum in 1925.
In addition, many collectors in this region, spurred in part by Sandzen’s frequent inclusion of Colorado subject matter and the presence of a major dealer of his work, own works by the artist.
“It was phenomenal the response I got,” Myers-Bowman said. “Everywhere I turned, there was someone who was interested.”
That visit led to an agreement by David Cook Fine Art to host what was originally going to be a small, private showing of maybe 20 of Sandzen’s works.
But the scope quickly expanded into a two-day public exhibition. To bolster the selections, the gallery turned to area collectors for loans.
“We’ve been in business for so long that we know where many of the best paintings are, and we have good relationships with collectors,” said Carrie Wassemiller, director of David Cook Fine Art. “People were really cooperative.”
The resulting show offers a wide if not totally comprehensive cross-section of Sandzen’s work, showing his stylistic evolution and a varied sampling of the Kansas and Colorado landscapes for which he is best known.
After studying in Sweden, including time with Anders Zorn, one of that country’s most famous artists, Sandzen traveled in 1894 to Paris, then the world’s artistic hotbed.
His teacher there, Edmond-Francois Aman-Jean, was closely associated with Georges Seurat. So, it was hardly surprising that Sandzen created a series of early pieces in the pointillist style, including “Untitled (Sunset)” (circa 1910), which will be in the show.
Later that year, he immigrated to the United States, securing a teaching post at Bethany College in a Swedish-immigrant frontier community in the heart of Kansas. He never left.
Although Sandzen achieved national attention by the 1920s, he was identified in certain circles as a regionalist, a tag that hurt his standing. But since his death in 1954, his reputation has steadily grown, and his paintings can be found in such major institutions as the Brooklyn Museum of Art.
About five or six years ago, prices for his work took an unprecedented jump because of new-found, fast-growing interest by curators and collectors.
Kyle MacMillan: 303-954-1675 or kmacmillan@denverpost.com
Birger Sandzen.
Art. David Cook Fine Art, 1637 Wazee St. A two-day exhibition spotlighting the popular Swedish-born artist, who devoted much of his career to depicting the Colorado landscape. Forty-five works will be on view, including 18 oils and nine watercolors. 10:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. today and 10:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday. Free. 303-623-8181 or .
