Barbara Hadden Prepares 'Swan Song'

Romany Kramoris Gallery in Sag Harbor offers “Swan Song,” an exhibition of paintings by Barbara Hadden on view through November 29. A reception for the artist will be held at the gallery on Saturday, November 13, from 5 to 6:30 p.m.

Hadden, a realist painter, has lived in Sag Harbor for more than 30 years. She paints the harbor’s architecture — homes, streets, shops, and farmscapes. Her landscapes and architectural portraits of Sag Harbor and the East End of the 1800s and 1900s, reveal a vanishing way of life. Hadden’s pieces bestow honor on the town’s historic stature through her poised lines and crisp color combinations. From buildings painted in color-block style to the rustling of a flag flying on the windmill flagpole, simple at first look — attention is paid to detail and positions and endless and effortless shading.

A devotee of Edward Hopper, her models are the architecture, streets, and shops of Sag Harbor, painted in a style solitary, stark, and pure. Her scenarios are devoid of human figures, emitting a mysterious and even haunting sense of drama. Longtime residents will recognize an otherworldliness from times past. A mood created by nuanced soft light and shadow, the paintings are subdued with an inner even mystical light.

The painting “Romany Kramoris Gallery” jolts the viewer with its daunting 1850’s stoop, used by carriages to drop off Main Street shoppers (back when the streets were mud). There are also paintings of The American Hotel, the Sag Harbor Cinema, the Variety Store and several renderings of the well-kept colonial homes.

She has also captured the sunlight on the architecture and fields. Hamptons potato fields, plots of cauliflower, corn and red cabbage, and the Riverhead beds of lettuce with vast perspective, now mostly diminished.

Hadden is a self-taught artist whose works can be found in many collections. She began painting in the late 1970s in a primitive style using acrylic and ink, she made a departure to watercolor in recent years, and now enjoys working with oils.

Romany Kramoris Gallery is at 41 Main Street, Sag Harbor and is open daily from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. (later on weekend nights). For details visit kramorisgallery.com or call 631-725-2499.