Sabina Streeter, a Sag Harbor artist, has often looked to popular culture for inspiration. An exhibition of her paintings at MoMA PS1 in 1986, “Tempeste di Primavera” (“Spring Storms”), was based on the Italian Fotoromanzi, a type of serialized, illustrated storytelling in which the narrative is expressed through photographs enhanced with comic-style word balloons.
One source, motion pictures, led to a series of paintings inspired by the films of the director Douglas Sirk, which were exhibited at the Sag Harbor Cinema three years ago during its Sirk festival.
Ms. Streeter and the cinema have joined forces again, this time with “Vacanze Romane” (“Roman Vacation”), a show of the artist’s paintings inspired by her favorite postwar Cinecitta films, as well as Fotoromanzi, that will open Saturday in the theater’s third floor after a 6 p.m. screening of “The White Sheik” (1952), Federico Fellini’s first film.
Many of the Fotoromanzi are stylistically similar to the 1940s and ‘50s Italian movie genre Telefoni Bianchi, as well as films by Vittorio de Sica, Dino Risi, and Fellini. With emotional drama, humorous narratives, and the optimism of postwar Italy, those films reflected a desire for escapism, in contrast to the more gritty imagery of Italian neorealism.
“As a child, Fotoromanzi were a forbidden object of fascination, the adult, racier version of my Mickey Mouse comic books,” said Giulia D’Agnolo Vallan, the cinema’s artistic director. “As wonderfully portrayed in ‘The White Sheik,’ Fotoromanzi evoked a dreamlife dense with mystery, romance and adventure. I was immediately taken by the idea of collaborating with Sabina on this.”
In “The White Sheik,” co-written by Michelangelo Antonioni, Wanda, on her honeymoon in Rome with her husband, slips away to meet her idol, an adventure magazine character named The White Sheik. The film critic J. Hoberman called the film “a comic fable of mass-produced fantasy and fanatical devotion.”
Speaking of the Fotoromanzi magazines, which she first encountered years ago while working in Florence, Ms. Streeter said, “I became fascinated by their dramatic, sometimes naive storytelling re-enacted by mostly unknown actors, trying to evoke struggles of love and the pursuit of happiness in staged photographs.”
Her paintings begin with screenshots of films taken off a computer monitor. She uses mostly charcoal and oil in a large format to create gestural drawings and paintings that reflect the source material. “After selecting the most evocative images, in my eyes, I incorporate text, not necessarily based on the original still, but with Italian being a crucial element for maintaining authenticity.”
A question-and-answer session will follow the screening. The third-floor reception is set for 7:45 p.m. The exhibition will continue through June 30.
