© 2025 Kansas City Public Radio
NPR in Kansas City
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

The Van Gogh of the Plains

More than 100 years ago, Swedish-born artist Birger Sandzén helped shape the way Americans picture the Kansas landscape. Today, the largest collection of his paintings, prints, and drawings is in the small central Kansas town where he immigrated, lived and worked.

Whether you know it or not, how you picture the hills and streams of Kansas, and the mountains of Colorado, is largely shaped by a Swedish painter known as “the Van Gogh of the Plains.” KCUR’s Julie Denesha spent some time in Lindsborg, Kansas, known today as "Little Sweden."

Contact the show at news@kcur.org. Follow KCUR on Instagram and Facebook for the latest news.

Kansas City Today is hosted by Nomin Ujiyediin. It is produced by Olivia Hewitt and KCUR Studios, and edited by Madeline Fox, Emily Younker and Gabe Rosenberg.

You can support Kansas City Today by becoming a KCUR member: kcur.org/donate.

As a newscaster and a host of a daily news podcast, I want to deliver the most important and interesting news of the day in an engaging and easily understandable way. No matter where you live in the metro or what you’re interested in, I want you to learn something from each newscast or podcast – and maybe even give you something to talk about at the dinner table.
Olivia is the 2024-2025 KCUR Studios intern. Email her at ohewitt@kcur.org
No matter what happens in Washington D.C., Kansas City needs KCUR. And KCUR needs you.

Our ability to report local news — accurate, independent and paywall-free — depends on you. Donate now to support fact-based news.