From collection Kosti Ruohomaa Collection
LB2017.19.65180
Contact sheet: (11) 120mm frames showing scenes from Ruohomaa's visit to Cushing, Maine, in the summer of 1951. An additional frame (selected for publication, LB2017.19.65178) was clipped out of the sheet and stored separately. Pictured: Andrew Wyeth sitting with an aged Anna Christina Olson, who was the subject for Wyeth's iconic 1948 painting "Christina's World" (the painting includes a view of the Olson farmhouse, whose interior is pictured 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. Some of the frames are marked up in red crayon; in this case, Black Star editor Howard Chapnick selected the frames for possible inclusion in the 1977 book, "Night Train from Wiscasett Station", a posthumous tribute to Ruohomaa's work (the author Lew Dietz, another close friend of the photographer, wrote the text for the book). The single frame cut out of this contact sheet appears in item #LB2017.19.65178. 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.
