Background

Kosti S. Ruohomaa was born in 1913 in Quincy, Massachusetts, United States.

Education

Kosti Ruohomaa studied art in Boston.

Career

First working as a commercial artist in Boston and New York, Ruohomaa then moved to Hollywood, where he did an animation for Walt Disney Studios. During this period Kosti Ruohomaa took up photography and soon devoted himself to it completely. He worked on the staff of Life magazine for a time, but in the 1940s turned to freelance assignments, represented by Black Star. During his career, Kosti Ruohomaa had photographs published in such periodicals as Collier’s, Ladies’ Home Journal, Down East, Yankee, Parade, This Week, and How America Lives, among others.

Kosti Ruohomaa worked with the simplest equipment - a Rolleiflex and a 35mm camera. He is best known for his brooding black-and-white Maine seascapes and New England scenes.

Works

More photos

• photography

  • Man with pitchfork

    1945

  • Town Meeting

    1945

  • photography

  • photography

  • photography

  • photography

  • photography

  • Fishermen

  • photography

  • photography

References

• Kosti Ruohomaa: The Photographer Poet Acclaimed photographer Kosti Ruohomaa is widely known for his photographs of hardscrabble Yankees in mid-century Maine. No one was more acutely aware than Ruohomaa that his work was capturing a way of life that was rapidly fading. Before his work in Maine, however, Ruohomaa started out with Disney, then went on to become a freelance photographer for the Black Star Agency, where he was a regular contributor to Life, National Geographic, Look, and Ladies Home Journal. His true passion, however, was documenting the lives of the people of Maine. In this biography by curator Deanna Bonner-Ganter, of the Maine State Museum, Kosti's life and work are made relevant and important to an audience that may be unfamiliar with his work.
  2016