Colorado & Regional Art

William Sanderson (whose birth name was Wilhelm Tsiegelnitsky) was born August 4, 1905 in Dubbeln, Latvia, near Riga and at that time part of the Russian Empire. The family immigrated to America in 1923. While living in Newark, New Jersey from 1924 to 1926, he studied art at the National Academy of Design. After graduation in 1927 he illustrated books and magazines as a commercial and freelance artist in New York City, and was later hired as art director by the McCue Advertising Agency. He also taught graphic arts at the New York School of Industrial Arts under the Works Progress Administration (WPA). Drafted into the US Army Air Corps in 1941, he was stationed at Lowry Field in Denver where he married Ruth Lambertson in 1943. At the close of World War II he was dispatched to Berlin as an interpreter. Discharged from military service in 1945, he rejoined Ruth in Denver and a year later was hired by Vance Kirkland to teach advertising design at the University of Denver School of Art where he remained for 26 years. In 1948 Sanderson became a founding member of the 15 Colorado Artists who broke from the more traditional Denver Artists Guild. The Sandersons raised two children in Arvada, Colorado and then moved to Fort Morgan, Colorado, upon his retirement in 1972. Sanderson continued to paint until 1986. In 1976 he donated a collection of 40 of his paintings to Northeastern Junior College in Sterling, Colorado where they are permanently displayed in a gallery bearing his name.