From collection Kosti Ruohomaa Collection
LB2017.19.1424
Andrew Wyeth, a longtime friend of Ruohomaa's, sits with an aged Anna Christina Olson, who was the subject for Wyeth's iconic 1948 painting "Christina's World" (the painting shows Olson, who had lost the use of her legs due to a neurodegenerative condition, pulling herself through the grass toward the farmhouse whose interior is shown in the photo). Her brother, Alvaro, stands behind them in the shadows; the trio pose before a sunlit window shrouded in house plants, and in this and similar frames some or all of the figures gaze outside. 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.
