Study various schools, traditions and masters..., but do not let them take away from you the most precious gift of the Creator, your own individuality.  Individuality and Nature in honest partnership will always create new and fascinating works of art that will never grow old.  -Sandzén

Lydia was just one art student of thousands with great artistic potential who learned their craft under the Swedish master, Sven Birger Sandzén.  Of those students, many of their works hang in the home galleries of Lindsborg residents, churches, schools, establishments and at the senior's Bethany Home hall galleries.  To this day, these paintings continue to take the viewer back to thoughts of "the way they were," Sandzén with his students, who created these works of inspiration, beauty, and wonder! 

Sandzén had been schooled under the instruction of Stockholm's internationally known Swedish artist Anders Zorn (1860-1920) and the Swedish artist Richard Bergh (1858-1919) who became director of the Swedish National Museum in Stockholm. 

During Sandzén's early days as a struggling art student in Stockholm, fourth Swedish American Bethany College president Dr. Emory Lindquist in his 1993 book Birger Sandzén, An Illustrated Biographywrites, on page 11, that Birger Sandzén "...lived austerely within his limited financial resources, and at times he was uncertain about the future."  He wrote in a letter to his father [a pastor] in October of 1892, describing his situation: '...Although it already seems as if the life of an artist is difficult and trying, I cannot but believe that it is God's will that I go this path.  I think that I have been almost led by Him step by step for several years in that direction, and it cannot be His intention to permit an honest, hard-working and struggling person to suffer want because he has chosen in many respects a difficult career in life.' " 

Early in the year of 1894, Sandzén would finish his art studies in Paris with Edmond François Aman-Jean (1858-1936) who at one time shared a studio with Georges-Pierre Seurat, a post-impressionist painter.  Aman-Jean was a former student of the École des Beaux-Arts and promoter of impressionism whose works of art had won him recognition in the leading galleries of Europe. 

Lindquist describes Sandzén's Paris experiences in his book on pages 13 and 14 as follows: "The great cultural traditions of Paris enabled Sandzén to immerse himself in the beauty and meaning of art historically, and the lively activity stimulated him to enrich his own talents.  As a young painter surrounded by the inspiring work of famous painters, printmakers, sculptors, and architects, he felt a new sense of belonging to a great tradition.  He was free to paint, to view masterpieces, to discuss art, and culture generally with kindred spirits, to dream, and to share in the life of a Parisian.  The Café Versailles and the Restaurant Le Maitre were favorite meeting places of the art students where they shared good food, pleasant fellowship, and fine music.  The environment inspired Sandzén to full dedication to what now seemed truly to be his life's calling….” 

Sandzén’s Aman-Jean classes included students from 12 other nations, some of whom were from America, a country which intrigued Sandzén.  The vastness of it and the great promise that it held for foreigners as well as the abundant opportunities it held for artists to paint the beauty and splendor of landscapes untouched was persuasive and enthralling. 

Sandzén Student- LYDIA SOHLBERG DEERE -(1873-1943)KANSAS

This new land, along with the captivating literature on Lindsborg and Bethany College, Sandzén read from the 1891 book, I Sverige, (In Sweden) by Bethany College founder, Dr. Rev. Carl Aaron Swensson, further fueled the fire of Sandzén’s dream to one day live in America.  Despite Sandzén's studies with Zorn and Berg in Stockholm, the beautiful Venice of the North; and his stimulating experiences as an art student in Paris, the most splendid cultural capital in the world; Swedish Lindsborg, centered in the barren great plains of Kansas, won his heart, finding him writing a letter from Paris in February of that year to Swensson regarding employment as an instructor at Bethany College. 

Swensson, while on a trip through Europe, met with Sandzén and was so impressed by him that he invited the twenty-three year old Swede to join the Bethany faculty.  Thus, Sandzén was on his way to America, to Kansas, to Lindsborg, to Bethany, to begin his teaching career. 

This was the Sandzén that Bethany would received in late 1894, an artist fresh from Paris, full of cultural joy and ideas, wanting to share them all with those at the College.  These were the planted seeds which would eventually begin an art movement drawing many in the Smoky Hill Valley, students and residents alike, to study and to appreciate art at Bethany. 

Sandzén, however, had to first begin as an assistant in the Art Department headed up by European taught art professor Carl Lotave (1872-1924) who was born in Jönköping, Sweden, and was a recognized artist on the Continent whose subjects he painted were of European Royalty and famous persons.  At the same time of assisting in the Art Department, Sandzén became a language and vocal professor at Bethany. 

Five years later, in 1899, Sandzén became the Chair for the Art Department, when Lotave relocated to Colorado Springs to paint Native American scenes for the Washington D.C. Smithsonian Museum.  Sandzén's predecessor would finish his art career in New York City painting portraits including those of famous World War I American Generals. 

Thus, Lydia’s art professor was destined to live his dream, to paint the American landscape of the wild rugged West by becoming a Swedish-American-pioneer settling in the little Swedish city of Lindsborg to teach art at Bethany College. 

Sandzén would leave an incredible "legacy of visual art" behind in Lindsborg, art works of which would filter out to other parts of the nation and to Sweden.  The abundance of art in Lindsborg is the direct result of Sandzén’s ability to have instilled a contagious love for art and its understanding with his students and more generally within this rural Kansas community, which to this day still draws artists to settle there and practice their craft. 

Because of his great contribution to culture through art, this Swedish gentlemen, Sven Birger Sandzén, was destined to be honored by the Swedish Crown two times being knighted by the King’s emissaries receiving Sweden's "Order of Vasa" in 1901 and the "Order of the North Star" in 1940. 

The art that Sandzén was exposed to in Sweden and France as a student and later as a traveler throughout Europe, he most certainly shared with his students in the Smoky Valley of Kansas.  To share his knowledge and passion for art was his mission then, parts of which so appropriately live on to this day at the Lindsborg art gallery which bears his name, The Birger Sandzén Memorial Gallery, with the mission statement that reads: "Sharing the arts with the world, through the life and vision of Birger Sandzén." 

This gallery was lovingly established by his only child, Margaret Sandzén Greenough, and her husband Pelham Greenough III, a Bostonian.  These two individuals, like Sandzén, would also be recognized and honored similarly by the Swedish Crown--for Dr. Greenough in 1963 and Mrs. Greenough in 1991. 

Dr. Emory Lindquist who has written so fluently and passionately in his book on Birger Sandzén was also knighted personally in Lindsborg at Bethany College by the Swedish Crown, King Carl XVI Gustaf, in 1976 for his similar cultural contributions. 

Lindquist portrays Sandzén as not belonging to any school of art, but that he continued in his own style. 

On page 23, Lindquist writes, “As a teacher of art, Sandzén put forth a central principle that “the art teacher as well as the critic and the general public should respect and encourage a sound and healthy individualism which is the one normal and logical motive power in art production, and should discourage imitation, repetition and standardization.  A work of art is a personal message from soul to soul and cannot be made after formulas.  The Cézanne formula will not lead to goals any more than the old academic recipe. 

“Giving further emphasis to individualism, Sandzén observed: “Fortunately, every artist has the opportunity of counseling with a teacher that is always ready to give the very best advice to the sincere and unsophisticated disciple.  The name of the great master is Nature.  Study various schools, traditions and masters as much as you like, but do not let them take away from you the most precious gift of the Creator, your own individuality.  Individuality and Nature in honest partnership will always create new and fascinating works of art that will never grow old. . . .  If we study long enough with the Great Teacher [nature] we shall gradually work our way through imitation to free interpretation.” 

Formerly art was taken to mean the creation or reproduction of beauty, usually thru the mediums of paint or sculpture.  Modern understanding of art is the perfect expression of an idea or the perfect adoption of an object to its use, no matter how humble or common.  Art may be applied to every phase of life.  A building, a garden, a pictures, a room are all compositions in different mediums and each one may be a piece of art.  The human eye unconsciously seeks beauty and proportion in every object which it rests upon. Superfluous ornament is really what makes most things unbeautiful.