Inside Sandzen Winter 07

INSIDE SANDZÉN
This feature, highlighting a discovery relating to Sandzén from the archives, will be periodically updated on the website and is planned for each issue of Gallery Notes.

This letter was written by Sven Hellqvist from Munkfors, Sweden on December 10, 1969 to Mrs. Margaret Sandzén Greenough, who wrote "Keep!!!" underlined three times on the envelope.

Margaret apparently had given Mr. Hellqvist a Sandzén print, and in this letter this Swedish citizen records his feelings toward Sandzén's art and the Gallery. Excerpts follow. The complete letter is printed in the Winter 2007 Gallery Notes distributed free to all Gallery members.

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This I feel [--] a warm happiness at the thought of that feeling of beauty which I met with in your gallery. Your husband just breathed culture and so did the gallery which he has ordered to be built to the honor of your father.

And think, that I had an opportunity to see your father's works. I had read about him, I had seen his printed works and for a long time I have longed to see the original works. How fresh, attractive, bright and sometimes monumental. There wasn't a scrap of banality in them, only thorough refreshing art….

After the visit to Lindsborg we traveled round the whole of America, and I got a multiplicity of impressions. But nothing could make me forget Birger Sandzén's Memorial Art Gallery. It was like an oasis during the whole journey.

And now I have one of his printed works. I am very, very glad, you see. Today I have sent it to be framed.

Thanks for all your and your husband's goodness and kindness. I am glad and thankful that I have met you two. Think, if I could come back to Lindsborg another time. The first thing I would do then, would be to go to your gallery and just be filled up with its fresh beauty.