Who Was the Christina of Andrew Wyeth's "Christina's World"?

Famous American painter Andrew Wyeth passed away at home early January 16^th at the age of 91. According to the Washington Post, no cause of death was reported.

Wyeth's focus for painting rested primarily in Pennsylvania's Brandywine River Valley and the Maine coastal region near Cushing. Often regarded as too dark by some, Wyeth's paintings were the epitome of emotion. Many were set against the fading brown or dull gray backdrops of the fall or winter and often focused on a certain person or object.

One of his most recognized and beloved paintings is "Christina's World," which shows a young crippled woman crawling across a brown field towards an imposing gray farmhouse, her pink dress standing out brilliantly against the grass. But who was Christina and how did the painting come to be?

Since 1939, Wyeth had been sketching and painting two Maine neighbors, Christina Olson and her brother, Alvaro. They lived in a weathered old house built by their great-grandfather on a promontory jutting out into the Atlantic Ocean.

Wyeth happened to look out from an upstairs window in the Olson house and saw Christina, who had been crippled by disease as a child, crawling across a field. He later did a pencil drawing of the Olson house and field. Eventually, Christina's haunting image was added to the picture.

With the exception of the last two months of her life, Christina Olson lived her entire life in the house on the hill. Though it is believed that Christina suffered from polio, experts are not positive what plagued her. She had trouble walking as early as three, but refused to be examined.

Christina was an expert seamstress and a wonderful homemaker, but as she got older, her disability progressed and she began to fall often. At 26, she couldn't walk more than three steps without assistance.

Between 1912 and 1917, Christina happily met and fell in love with a young Harvard student. Though they exchanged many letters and spent time together, he eventually stopped writing. He had met and married another.

In 1919, Christina was examined by doctors. They were unable to diagnose her condition, but advised her to spend as much time outdoors as possible. At 53, Christina was no longer able to stand and had stopped attempting to walk. Rather than use a wheelchair, she would crawl. Though she had a friend who lived eight hundred feet away, she could crawl the distance in less than an hour.

In 1948, Wyeth sketched a 55-year-old Christina crawling across the field in a dress she had made for herself years before. For the rest of Christina's life, she and her home were the focus of Wyeth's paintings and to him, they were symbols of Maine. Wyeth said,

"In the portraits of that house, the windows are eyes or pieces of the soul almost. To me, each window is a different part of Christina's life."

Christina's home is part of the Farnsworth Art Museum. For visiting times and information click here.

Bart Barnes, American Painter Andrew Wyeth Dies at 91, Washington Post

Henry Holland, Dr. Henry Writes About "Christina's World", Lincolnshire Post-Polio Library

Farnsworth Art Museum Official Website, Olson House