PRESERVING A NATIONAL HISTORIC LANDMARK: The Olson House

While Alvaro’s World depicts daily life at the Olson House in Cushing, Maine in the middle of the 20th century, the Farnsworth Art Museum takes crucial steps to ensure that future generations of people from Maine and beyond can enjoy this location that so inspired Andrew Wyeth.

In 2020, a Save America’s Treasures Grant was awarded to the museum by the National Park Service to fund a Historic Structures Report of the Olson House. The report was presented to the museum in 2022 and details current conditions, urgent and immediate needs, 3-to-5-year preservation demands, and more.

Preserving a National Historic Landmark: The Olson House , an exhibition on view in the Wyeth Center, highlights this work, as we use minimally invasive approaches to protect, stabilize, maintain and repair the Olson House. This site in Cushing has been shaped in appearance and spirit over thousands of years: long ago by Indigenous Peoples, by colonist seamen and farmers, by storytellers and artists, and since being acquired by the Farnsworth Art Museum in 1991, by scholars, curators, and more than 200,000 visitors from around the world.

Thanks to the care we’re putting into the site, countless more will be able to visit it and experience the building similar to how it would have appeared during Wyeth’s life.

For more information about preservation efforts at the Olson House or to support this important work, contact Ann Scheflen, Chief Advancement Officer at ascheflen@farnsworthmuseum.org or call 207-390-6002.