THE BIG PRETTY - Birger Sandzén Memorial Gallery, Lindsborg, KS

Sunday, May 3, 2026 11:00 AM 11:00
Sunday, July 19, 2026 12:00 PM 12:00

Birger Sandzen Memorial Gallery 401 North First Street Lindsborg KS (map)

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Garden of the Gods, (After Birger Sandzen) 40x48” Acrylic on Panel. 2026

Sarah Winkler (b. 1973 Manchester, UK) is a contemporary landscape painter who immigrated to the United States in 1989 and gradually made her way West first to California and for the past 11 years lives and works in Morrison, Colorado. Since moving to Colorado, her creative process radically changed in a direct response to the dramatic Rocky Mountain landscape. Living at high altitude with no hard horizon line, she invented a horizontal motif as a tool to divide the picture plane and reference the hidden geology below ground that creates the reality above. Her prior interest in Geology during her studies at William Paterson University (NJ) was rekindled in Colorado with exposure to the strata of time clearly visible in the rock formations. The artist responds to place by looking at the geological history of the regional landscape and forging a connection by collecting and matching rock textures, embedding minerals into the painting, and mimicking Earth’s natural forces of erosion and deposition in her unique application and removal of paint on the surface of the paintings. She is known for her use of bold color, texture and reflective nature of the imagery arranged in a collage aesthetic to emphasize the layered strata and climatic record of the landscapes she depicts. She finds inspiration in the flora and fauna, rocks and minerals, lakes, rivers, coast and skies in the clear, high key, dry climate of the West.

Birger Sandzén, *A Mountain Symphony (Longs Peak, Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado)*, 1927. Oil paint on canvas; 48 x 60 in. Denver Art Museum.

“I first encountered a Birger Sandzén painting at the Denver Art Museum’s western art collection. It is titled, A Mountain Symphony (Longs Peak, Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado) What struck me about the work was the scale of the composition, its bold ‘false’ color and muscular texture of the expressive paint application. I saw in his painted language the connection to European painting styles blended with the bold and epic risk taking embedded in the landscapes of the West. It didn't surprise me that he was dubbed the “Van Gogh of the West”.

I happened upon the Birger Sandzén Memorial Gallery during a fateful snowstorm on the Great Plains that detoured my route through Lindsborg, Kansas. I was excited to happen upon his namesake museum, opposite Bethany College where he taught for most of his life, and take a look inside. There are many of his paintings in the collection displayed in the main gallery at all times. I instantly felt a kinship to his work’s extraordinary vision and his personal immigration journey from Sweden to the American West. I was profoundly moved and asked to be considered for a show alongside this great master painter. I was shocked and honored when Ron Michael, director of the museum accepted my exhibition proposal.

Birger Sandzen visited Colorado regularly from Lindsborg, Kansas and dubbed the epic landscapes as “The Big Pretty”. His interest in geology, light and shadow contrast, vivid color and texture echos my own. I decided to title my show that exact phrase and will focus many of the paintings on Colorado’s Front Range locations that Birger Sandzen enjoyed painting. Locations such as Longs Peak, Pikes Peak, Colorado River and Garden of the Gods will pay homage to the legacy and works of this prolific and legendary Swedish-American painter (b.1894 - d.1954)