''Christina's World'' is a 1948 painting by American painter Andrew Wyeth and one of the best-known American paintings of the mid-20th century. It is a

tempera Tempera (), also known as egg tempera, is a permanent, fast-drying painting medium consisting of colored pigments mixed with a water-soluble binder medium, usually glutinous material such as egg yolk. Tempera also refers to the paintings done ...

work done in a realist style, depicting a woman semi-reclining on the ground in a treeless, mostly tawny field, looking up at a gray house on the horizon; a barn and various other small outbuildings are adjacent to the house. It is held by the

Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, and is often identified as one of ...

, in New York.World''
in the MoMA Online Collection

Background

The woman in the painting is Anna Christina Olson (May 3, 1893 – January 27, 1968). Anna had a degenerative muscular disorder which meant that she had not been able to walk since she was about 30 years old. She was firmly against using a wheelchair, so she would crawl everywhere. Wyeth was inspired to create the painting when he saw her crawling across a field while he was watching from a window in the house. He had a summer home in the area and was on friendly terms with Olson, using her and her younger brother as the subjects of paintings from 1940 to 1968. Olson was the inspiration and subject of the painting, but she was not the primary model; Wyeth's wife Betsy posed as the torso of the painting. Olson was 55 at the time that Wyeth created the work. The house depicted in the painting is known as the Olson House in Cushing, Maine, and is open to the public, operated by the Farnsworth Art Museum. It is a

National Historic Landmark A National Historic Landmark (NHL) is a building, district, object, site, or structure that is officially recognized by the United States government for its outstanding historical significance. Only some 2,500 (~3%) of over 90,000 places listed ...

and has been restored to match its appearance in the painting, although Wyeth separated the house from its barn and changed the lay of the land for the painting.

Reception and history

''Christina's World'' was first exhibited at the Macbeth Gallery in Manhattan in 1948. It received little attention from critics at the time, but

Alfred Barr Alfred Hamilton Barr Jr. (January 28, 1902 – August 15, 1981) was an American art historian and the first director of the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. From that position, he was one of the most influential forces in the development of ...

, the founding director of the

(MoMA), bought the painting for $1,800 (equivalent to $ in dollars). He promoted it at MoMA and it gradually grew in popularity over the years. Today, it is considered an icon of American art and is rarely loaned out by the museum.

In popular culture

In Arthur C. Clarke's novel '' 2001: A Space Odyssey'', ''Christina's World'' is one of the two paintings (the other one being

Vincent van Gogh Vincent Willem van Gogh (; 30 March 185329 July 1890) was a Dutch Post-Impressionist painter who posthumously became one of the most famous and influential figures in Western art history. In a decade, he created about 2,100 artworks, inc ...

's '' Bridge at Arles'') hanging on the living room wall of "an elegant, anonymous hotel suite" to which the astronaut David Bowman is transported after passing through the Star Gate. It does not appear in the film adaptation directed by Stanley Kubrick. The painting is also part of the sci-fi film '' Oblivion'' (2013), paying homage to the book ''2001: A Space Odyssey''. The life of Olson and her encounter with Wyeth is portrayed in the novel ''A Piece of the World'' by Christina Baker Kline. A scene in the 1994 film '' Forrest Gump'' was inspired by the painting. When Jenny returns home, she throws herself on the ground and mirrors Olson's pose in reverse. The painting was used as inspiration for the "Farmhouse" chapter in the 2020 video game ''

The Last of Us Part II ''The Last of Us Part II'' is a 2020 action-adventure game developed by Naughty Dog and published by Sony Interactive Entertainment for the PlayStation 4. Set five years after ''The Last of Us'' (2013), the game focuses on two playable chara ...

''. The painting is referenced in the 2020 film '' I'm Thinking of Ending Things''. The painting is referenced in the season 4 episode of Atlanta " Andrew Wyeth. Alfred's World".

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Christina's World 1948 paintings Paintings by Andrew Wyeth Paintings in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art (New York City) Women in art