His world in pictures

The doctor points to the name on the wall by the photograph. “I’m Robin Tattersall,’’ he tells the gobsmacked couple.

This 80-year-old surgeon, who splits his time between Essex and Tortola in the British Virgin Islands, was at the MFA visiting the Avedon exhibition and pointing himself out in many of the famous fashion photographs. Tattersall had no ambitions to become a male model in the 1950s. But when he needed to make money to put himself through medical school, he started making the rounds at Paris agencies. He stopped by the offices of Harper’s Bazaar, and later that day, Avedon was putting Tattersall in one of fashion’s most influential portraits.

“Out came this young lad,’’ Tattersall says of his first meeting with Avedon. “I thought he was an assistant. I thought he was a young lad because he looked like he was about 20. He dragged out this long-legged, red-headed beauty. He said ‘This is Suzy Parker, take her in your arms.’ ’’

The only drawback to the shoot was that Tattersall was required to roller skate with Parker, and he had no experience on skates. After Tattersall fell down several times, Avedon sent him off to learn on the streets of Paris, where children made fun of him for falling. He came back, no better than before, so the picture was taken as a still, with cables pulling at the couple’s clothes to create the illusion of wind and motion.

Q. What did “M*A*S*H’’ mean to Altman’s career? A. “M*A*S*H’’ made Robert Altman the hottest young director in Hollywood — even though he was 45 when it came out! He made almost no money from the movie — he was paid just $75,000 to direct it — but it launched him into the stratosphere in terms of artistic freedom and the financial success that followed.

Q. Did he expect its legacy to survive and thrive as it did?

A. He loved “M*A*S*H’’ and was proud of its legacy as a movie, but he had mixed feelings as a result of the TV show by the same name. He hated that show, mostly because he thought it sanitized and twisted the theme of the movie. It might also have been because, over time, younger people didn’t realize that the show was based on a movie, which irked him. He also didn’t get paid for the TV show, so like most things with Bob Altman, it’s a complicated legacy.

Q. Did he have a favorite actor or actress from it?

A. If you had asked Bob while he was making the movie which actors or actresses he liked best, he would have said the unknown ensemble players who filled out the edges of the screen. But I think it’s fair to say that, over time, he had the deepest affection for Elliott Gould (Trapper John), Sally Kellerman (Hot Lips), and Michael Murphy (who had a small role, as “Me Lai’’ Marston).

“I was understandably skeptical,’’ Dearinger told The Art Newspaper (this sort of thing apparently happens to curators all the time), “but since the caller was in the neighborhood, I told him I would at least visit and take a look.’’

The image was obscured by dirt, but Dearinger was immediately struck by the luminous clouds. “It was just the sort of color that Church was so good at capturing,’’ he said.

The owners agreed to have the work restored. The calling card, which Dearinger had noticed stuck to the back of the stretcher, was cleaned, so that the work’s title, “Evening on the Sea’’ and the name “F.E. Church,’’ became legible. Dearinger’s research found more circumstantial evidence to back the attribution, and he hit the jackpot when he found a photograph of the artist’s studio with this very painting sitting on the easel. The painting, still bearing signs of wear and tear at the edges, is now on long-term loan to the Athenaeum, where it can be seen on the ground floor.

Devra First, Matthew Gilbert, Doug Most, Christopher Muther, and Sebastian Smee of the Globe staff contributed. Read the Names blog at www.boston.com/namesblog. Names can be reached at names@globe.com or at 617-929-8253.