The primary (and best) reason to digitize museum collections is to share them with the public on the web. PMM’s photo archives staff has been hard at work for the past year getting to know Kosti Ruohomaa’s photographs through this process. Since he worked under the umbrella of a photo agency for most of his life (Black Star Publishing in Manhattan), the collection is most meaningfully grouped by his professional assignments: those he was given and those he conceived himself and pitched to them. It’s interesting to observe that many of the “self-assignments” were studies of particular aesthetic and cultural themes which the photographer circled back to repeatedly throughout his career.
Beginning in January of 2021, we’ll use this page to showcase a few new assignments each month. Please check back here to further explore the captivating work of this iconic Maine talent. Click on any of the thumbnails below to open that group of images in our online database.
Kosti Assignments
Frederick Payne
Kosti Ruohomaa photographed Governor Fred Payne and his wife, Ella Hodgdon, along with their Chinook dog, in the spring of 1952, […] Read More »
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Shevis
Midcoast Maine-based printmakers William and Estelle Shevis were mainstays of the post-war Maine art scene, helping to found the Haystack Mountain […] Read More »
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Alewife Run
These photographs of the Alewife operation at the Homeport Fish Company in Damariscotta Mills were taken for a feature in Maine […] Read More »
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Lobster Festival
The first Maine Lobster Festival was held in August 1947, to revive summer activities in the Camden-Rockland area after WWII. The […] Read More »
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Richard Nixon in Maine
In September of 1952, then-Senator Richard Nixon campaigned in Maine as the vice presidential running mate to Dwight Eisenhower. He landed […] Read More »
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Andrew Wyeth Collects a Hearse
Ruohomaa met American realist painter Andrew Wyeth in 1947 through their mutual acquaintance, the sculptor George Curtis. The two had a […] Read More »
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Farm County Agent
In the late 1950s, Gilbert Jaeger was the county farm agent for Knox and Lincoln counties in Maine (farm agents were […] Read More »
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L.L. Bean
Leon Leonwood Bean was an earthy, dynamic character whose runaway entrepreneurial success was merely an extension of his life and personality. […] Read More »
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Painting Bee
“On Monday, August 25th [1952], the city of Eastport, Maine closed its shops and painted the town red— and green, yellow […] Read More »
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Washington, Maine Town Meeting
The tiny working-class town of Washington, Maine lies in northern Knox County. It was incorporated as Putnam in 1811; residents adopted […] Read More »
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