Lindsborg ? Bethany College plans to auction 11 artworks by Kansas artist Birger Sandzen, who created most of his work while teaching at the central Kansas college in the 1900s.

The auction Aug. 13-14 at the Manitou Gallery in Santa Fe, N.M., also will include a collection of the college’s Native American pottery, college officials announced Tuesday. The event is designed to raise money for Bethany’s scholarship funds.

Sandzen, who immigrated from Sweden to teach at Bethany in 1894, is one of the most well-known artists who did most of his work in Kansas, said Ron Michael, curator at the Sandzen Memorial Art Gallery in Lindsborg. The artist traveled around the nation with his work, which often featured Kansas landscapes.

The collection is significant because of the quality of pieces and the time span — from about 1910 to 1940, said Charla Nelson, gallery director at Manitou Galleries.

“This grouping is by far the most important that’s ever come up at one place at one time,” she told The Wichita Eagle. “You can actually see his very distinctive style develop over the works that we’ve got.”

The gallery is owned by Bob Nelson, Charla Nelson’s husband, who is a Bethany graduate and credits the college with his love of art.

“The whole point of this is to help further the mission statement of the college, and they’ve entrusted us with these pieces to do just that for them,” she said.

The gallery is also selling about 100 pieces of Pueblo pottery for the college, all dated before 1905.

Bethany’s board of directors decided to sell the artwork after a donor gave the college a piece in 2009 with the intent that the college sell it, said Bob Schmoll, Bethany’s vice president for finance and operations.

Schmoll said he had no idea how much money the auction would raise. The funds will be used to finance student scholarships, which amount to more than $6 million each year. Bethany has about 600 students.

Bethany’s Art Committee tried to choose works for sale that were not used by professors and students. In the past, the college sold certain items but not such a large number of pieces at once, Schmoll said.

“We still have a lot of art and different things left on campus, so it’s not as though we’re selling all the art that the institution has,” he said.

When the Manitou Galleries sent an e-mail last week announcing the auction, several interior decorators and art collectors from around the U.S. expressed interest in the Sandzen collection, Nelson said.

“We expect all of the pieces to do well,” Nelson said.