From collection Kosti Ruohomaa Collection
LB2017.19.1416
View of American realist painter Andrew Wyeth sitting on the kitchen floor of the Olson house in Cushing, Maine, with Anna Christina Olson and her brother Alvaro Olson; all are smiling. Teapot and other cooking vessels on kitchen stove in background. Wyeth featured Anna Christina's likeness in his iconic "Christina's World", which he painted in 1948 looking back at the Olson farmhouse across the meadow. 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.
