LB2017.19.1517

LB2017.19.1517

Andrew Wyeth poses with Alvaro Olson, who is dressed in worn work clothes (wool shirt, suspenders, newsboy cap) just outside the doorway of a house. The interior, where Ruohomaa stands with his camera, is somewhat decrepit, with tattered curtains and ragged carpeting. A handmade wooden ladder leans outside against the face of the building. Olson, seen in profile, holds a pipe and gazes off to the right of the frame; Wyeth sits on the threshold with his back to the camera. A line of tall posts stands in the field beyond (possibly trellising for hops); further out, a row of conifers appears to mark a shoreline, and further still a harbor or bay is visible, bounded on the far side by more mainland or an island. Alvaro Olson was the brother of Anna Christina Olson, herself the subject of Wyeth's iconic 1948 painting, "Christina's World". The painting includes a view of the Olson farmhouse in the background. Ruohomaa met American realist painter Andrew Wyeth in 1947 through their mutual acquaintance, the sculptor George Curtis. The two enjoyed a long friendship and had a few eccentric adventures (see "Kosti Ruohomaa: Andrew Wyeth Collects a Hearse" and "Kosti Ruohomaa: Andrew Wyeth's Deserted House"). Arguably, they also shared some artistic affinities. For example, each had his own way of imbuing otherwise ordinary scenes with complex emotion, and both men often seemed to view their subjects as elemental forces. The painter invited the photographer to his family's summer home in Cushing, Maine for a visit of several days in June and July of 1951. The occasion yielded some notable portraits of Wyeth and his family; in effect, Ruohomaa was able to study Wyeth in one of his native habitats.