NE 2451 S22s ^he Smoky galley A A (0 2 8 9 8 6 By birger Sanclzen UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT LOS ANGELES IJMVERSITY of CALIFORNIA AT U. )S ANGELES LIBRARY The Smoky Valle^ Btrger Sandzen The Smoky Valley Reproductions of a Series of Lithographs of the Smoky Valley in Kansas Birger Sandzen An Introduction by Minna K. Powell CARLJ.SMALLEY Kansas City, Missouri ic/ia 145374 Copyright, K)22, by Carl J. Smalley Kansas City. Mo. Published December, ic/22 Printed by the ^Republican Press, at McPherson, Kansas, in the United States of America Sandzen and His Friend, tke Smolcy. When Birger Sandzen looks into tke seamed face of a pioneer farmer of Kansas, he sees the conquest of a spirit. When he looks upon the face of the Kansas prairie, he sees the conquest of the wilderness and he makes the world feel the courage of the Kansas spirit and the poWer of Kansas sinews. An artist who penetrates below the surface of his subject and sees the soul of it looking out, Birger Sandzen Was foreordained to celebrate in black and white and in color, the moods and the meaning of the Smoky Hill River, which winds so peacefully in and out among the farms of central Kansas. The Smoky Hill River is not much wider than a creek, and the early homesteader valued it chiefly because it watered his land and his stock. Then came Birger Sandzen, artist, who settled near the stream in the town of Lindsborg. Almost immediately a deep af- fection sprang up between the artist and the river. Accustomed to a land of many streams and lakes, the artist haunted the banks of the river that seemed to speak to him of home. He served the friendly stream b)) celebrating its moods and sudden turnings, and the stream taught the artist h$ gentle gradations its own affinity^ for the prairie. It was so that Birger Sandzen learned to love the Kansas landscape. But first he sought the shadoWed banks of the Smoky. By sunlight and moonlight he studied it. Following its grace- ful bindings, Ke caught the poetry of Kansas,— the tired droop of cattle as they came to drink at dusk, the grouping of horses in hillside pastures, huddled cottonwoods like shy children along the clean banks of the stream. Finally the riVer taught him to see the masterpieces of art in the strong and rugged faces of the pioneer farmers whose land stretched along the riser's bank. He saw faces in which courage had drawn with a true hand lines of self-conquest. He saw the beauty of fingers knotted and bent with much serving and the glory of dimmed e^es. The pioneer men and ^omen of Kansas \\>ere crowned by Sandzen \\>ith the splendor of their deeds. But always he returned to the quiet river, grateful for the woods that hugged its banks and were mirrored in the water. His passion for the Smoky grew and deepened. It became to him the heart of Kansas, and Kansas, through the Smoky\ became his friend. And alxv'ay^s, as he tramped up and down the river's banks, he saw in miniature the grandeur he was later on to find in the Rockies and the master)) he was to sense in the Grand Cannon of the Colorado. As he painted outcroppings of rock in the hilrj) pastures, he was preparing unconsciously for his work of grOing expression to the gigantic cliffs and mountains of the great West. Tributaries of the Smoky\ overflowing their banks in the spring freshets, ran dry in summer and provided the artist with beds deeply fissured like their titanic model, the Grand Canyon. The Kills near Lindsborg, are small replicas of the Rockies. They slope to the v*ery bank of the Smoky and Birger Sandzen climbed from bank to summit where he looked out ov^er the wide prairie and sau> how lov'el}) it was. Since then he has ne\>er tired of painting the landscape that is the heart of Kansas, vibrating with the heroic toil and patience of the past and the hope of the future. Thus it is that v?hen Mr. Sandzen makes a study of the moon stealing up behind the willow's before the flush of afternoon is quite gone, he puts into the picture not only the objects a stranger might see, but also the deep \o*0e he bears the river and the land it has enriched. As a lithographer Mr. Sandzen has no rivals in this country, perhaps none anywhere. His love of the open is that of a poet, to whom the out-of-doors tells something of the immanence of God. Sometimes his landscapes express the poignant loneliness that broods over the Kansas prairie. Oftener he sees the delight- ful homeliness of the farmsteads, changing the Smok}) River Val- ley^ from a wilderness to a place of hearthstones and human hap- piness. Minna K. Powell bummer flESSj^SIftS' Storrj? Pasture With CottonvCood Grm)e '^g*«si^ " '"-~^^ ,;• . ■feAte Home of A Pioneer Smok;9 Ri^er Hilltop WilW Horses in a Hill}) Pasture &*4 ^€cag<^**- ^-* Rn?er Motif r : vv Abandoned Farmhouse Trees and Hills Willows b;9 TKe 5mok>) Ri\)er Olof Olson's Homestead Pond With Cottonwood Trees ;-'■'--. - 4 I r A)** i Hill}? Pasture With Cotf s In Tke Park Ri\)erbank 1 Copies of the lithographs reproduced in this ^o ume, limited to m proofs each, may be obtained from the pub- lisher. P rices from six to fift$ dollars each. CARL J. SMALLEY, Kansas City, Mo. This book is DUE on the last date stamped below NOV 2 1S§* iL y« *£ RFC'D LD FEB27 m 975 Form L-9-35»i-8 '28 A A 000 289 860 9 10 - * * * — 1 ' ^ ©3 PLEASE DO NOT REMOVE THIS BOOK CARD i £ %041WH^ s M University Research Library B & W « s s e e s A a 6 9 s 13 £ I I' I i I