From collection Kosti Ruohomaa Collection
LB2017.19.186
Ruohomaa took this photo of the Hoffses farmhouse interior from the entryway shown in other frames. Here, he's looking beyong through a doorway into the dilapidated room seen in LB2017.19.174. A birch log leans wedging the front door shut objects lie on the floor at one corner of the frame. The shirt or jacket hanging on the wall may have been abadoned or hung there by Wyeth or Ruohomaa for effect. Peeling and water-stained wallpaper, detritus, a heap of discarded objects near the front door, other signs of neglect, and the contrasting light and gloom create the forlorn, ghostly atmosphere which attracted Andrew Wyeth to paint scenes in the house. Ruohomaa met American realist painter Andrew Wyeth in 1947 through their mutual acquaintance, the sculptor George Curtis. The two had a long friendship which sometimes led to unusual adventures and some notable creative collaborations, as in this group of photographs. In the summer of 1951, Wyeth coaxed Ruohomaa to explore an ancient house which had been occupied by generations of the Hoffses near Waldoboro, Maine up until 1941. Christian Hoffses, who built the colonial with lumber sawn on the property sometime around 1800, was a Revolutionary War veteran. Much later, after the last occupant (unidentified) died, his surviving relatives locked the door and left the interior untouched: the house was furnished, beds were made, dishes lay on the kitchen table, and unburned firewood sat in the woodstove. Wyeth had visited the house previously and, knowing something about Ruohomaa's aesthetic leanings as a photographer, realized he'd appreciate its air of somber mystery: the sharp contrast of light and shadow, the antiquity of cobwebs and dust, the sense of a life suspended in time. As with the Louds Island hearse escapade (see LB2017.19.40972-LB2017.19.41321), he took these photographs as part of a spontaneous and offbeat adventure: it was not a Black Star assignment. However, some of them were used subsequently in a Life magazine article. [Ruohomaa, Kosti and Bourges, Fernand. (1957, July 27). Artist Paints a Ghostly House. Life, 80-83.]
