A sunset or sunrise. The sky is dark blue and the sun is orange hanging over a group of trees. This is reflected in a body of water.

Moonlight Reflections

Sandzen, Birger

1898

Artwork Information

  • Title:

    Moonlight Reflections

  • Artist:

    Sandzen, Birger

  • Artist Bio:

    American (born in Sweden), 1871-1954

  • Date:

    1898

  • Medium:

    Oil on board

  • Dimensions:

    13 3/4 x 6 3/4 inches

  • Credit Line:

    Wichita Art Museum, Museum purchase, Friends of the Wichita Art Museum

  • Object Number:

    2007.47

  • Display:

    Not Currently on Display

About the Artwork

Moonlight Reflections is an early landscape by the artist, revealing Sandzén’s signature palette at the beginning stages of his artistic career. Reminiscent of the work of Arthur Wesley Dow, it is painted in a vertically elongated format taken from Japanese prints. Although Dow was based in New York or Ipswich, Massachusetts, and it is unlikely that Sandzén knew him directly, he was an inspirational teacher of Japanese aesthetics at this time.

The painting descended in the family of painter Carl Lotave, who was a classmate and close friend of Sandzén’s in Stockholm, and who also taught at Bethany College in Kansas.