The final painting of renowned Kansas artist Birger Sandzen is coming home this weekend.
The painting, “Smoky Hill River Scene,” will be officially donated to the Birger Sandzen Memorial Gallery in Lindsborg on Saturday.
Sandzen was an early leader in Kansas art, creating mostly in impressionism and post-impressionism scenes of the prairie. The Lindsborg museum has about 250 of his nearly 2,800 oil paintings.
The children of the painting’s owner, Ralph Hale, are donating the picture to the gallery. Hale bought it in 1962 and it was hanging in the home of Hale’s second wife in Hutchinson until her death in May.
Sandzen, a native of Sweden, created most of his work while teaching at Bethany college in the 1900s.
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Associated Press information from: The Hutchinson News
