ROCKLAND — On Saturday, May 30, the Farnsworth Art Museum will open an exhibition of works by the artists Andrew Wyeth and Kosti Ruohomaa. The exhibition of both paintings and photographs will be on display in the museum's Wyeth Center through November 1.

The exhibition Wyeth and Ruohomaa explores the friendship between Maine artists Andrew Wyeth (1917-2009) and Kosti Ruohomma (1913-1961).

Both Wyeth, a painter in the realist tradition, and Ruohomaa, a photo journalist for National Geo­graphic and Life magazines, were famous for their iconic depictions of Maine life and the people who called Maine home, from farmers to fishermen.

Both found Maine an inexhaustibly rich place in which to practice their respective arts, and in particular were fascinated by the relationship between its people and their environment, Wyeth in particular with the Olson House and siblings Alvaro and Christina Olson; and Ruohomma, who photo­graphed the hard working people of Midcoast Maine with honesty, sensitivity, and grace.

Works such as Wyeth’s watercolor Off Teels Island, Haycart, and Woodstove will be shown along with Ruohomma's photographs of Monhegan, Dix Island, and Grand Banks fishermen and the Olson House.

As Wyeth states in his forward to Night Train at Wiscasset Station, a book of Kosti's Maine photographs: "Kosti Ruohomaa had the insight and intelligence to see through his lens the essential character of Maine and its people."

The exhibition opening will be celebrated at a members' preview and reception Friday, May 29, at 6 p.m. This exhibition is sponsored in part by Lie-Nielsen Toolworks and the Wickham Skinner Fund. The primary media sponsor is Maine Home + Design.