In the early morning hours of September 11, 2001, Steve Sandberg sat in his classroom on the third floor of a New York City building, hearing a radio announcement at 8:40 a.m. Like millions of others, he quickly heard of the unthinkable going on at the World Trade Center. But for Sandberg, a teacher in New York City at the time, the experience didn’t end when the report faded from the airwaves. It changed his life and his art forever. In the years that followed, Sandberg was plagued by the numbers “9 and 11,” and by the images, feelings, and unresolved questions that took up space in the days and weeks following the attack. His reaction was not through words or thinking, but through image. And thus Images of Infamy was born: a raw, symbolic, intensely personal art tribute to what he and the nation experienced, perceived, and lost that day.
More Than Art: A Personal Testimony
Sandberg’s Images of Infamy is neither a political commentary nor an exhibition of art. It is healing and an appeal to remember. Every drawing in the collection is done by hand, inked with emotion, and supported by a written essay. They are not stories made up. They are symbolic representations of trauma, confusion, patriotism, fear, and memory.
The visual vocabulary Sandberg employs is dramatic eagles, fire, flags, shattered spires, cruciform motifs all caricatured and charged with a sense of spiritual accounting. The paintings are ceremonial, almost as if stained glass, holding something holy and disquieting in tandem.
The Educator-Turned-Artist
Sandberg’s own history as an educator underlies his work. His methods are systematic, yet no pedagogical. He doesn’t intend to instruct in history, but to commemorate an emotional reality. In retirement, he drew pen and ink not to flee what he saw, but to filter it.
In an interview in 2008 with the Pocono Record, Sandberg remarked, “After seeing the tragedy with my students that morning from my third-floor classroom, I was fascinated by the numbers 9 and 11.” That fascination was expressed. And that expression found form in Images of Infamy.
His art has since been exhibited in public spaces, such as an emotional show at Vinny D’s in East Stroudsburg. Every piece is an invitation for viewers not only to see, but to consider to feel.
A Different Kind of Patriotism
There is no political intent in Sandberg’s work. There is only pain, memory, and a determination to recount the truth as he experienced it. His work defies the tidy, patriotic wrapping so frequently applied to 9/11. It instead celebrates the chaos the anguish, the uncertainty, the silence.
It’s not about blaming. It’s about not forgetting.
Sandberg’s pieces challenge the viewer to go deeper. Beyond the flag-waving and soundbites. Beyond the televised moments we’ve seen hundreds of times. Images of Infamy takes us back to the very first moments of shock and to the years of reflection that followed.
Final Thoughts
Steve Sandberg is not a politician or a novelist. He’s a witness. A citizen. An artist. His art is not constructed of plot or character, but of memory, loss, and a dogged refusal to allow a national wound to recede into abstraction.
Images of Infamy is his own reaction to 9/11 raw, authentic, and unapologetic. With it, he invites others to consider not only what was lost, but how we opt to remember.
Now available on Amazon: