CAPTAINS, MATES, AND WIDOWS

Sabina Streeter brings the storied era of the Sag Harbor whaling history to life in her show “Captains, Mates, and Widows” on view at the Sag Harbor Whaling Museum, August 29 through September 25, 2014.

Sabina Streeter’s portraits in charcoal and mixed media feature the mid-19th Century whaling captains who reigned as the financial, political and cultural leaders of some of the eastern seaboard in their day. Along with Nantucket and New Bedford, Sag Harbor was one of the three capitals of the whaling industry during the peak years between 1829 and 1847.

The “blubber oil barons” were courageous risk takers, bold innovators, and sometimes cruel masters who presaged the emergence of 20th Century oil tycoons and technology entrepreneurs. But unlike many later capitalist moguls, they were hands on participants in their ventures. From the helms of their whaling ships, they pushed their crews and themselves to their physical, mental, and spiritual limit under extremely harsh and dangerous conditions on the high seas in pursuit of immense fortune.

Sabina Streeter's works also draws attention to some of the unsung heroes and heroines of the whaling era, the crews on board ship, and the families the whalers left behind .

The harpooners, mates, and cabin boys hailed from many different continents and represented every major ethnic group from Caucasian and Hispanic to African American and Native American.

While the captains and their crews sailed the globe, their wives and families suffered financial and emotional hardships on the home front, including the prospect of becoming widows if their husbands did not return form their hazardous voyages .

Many of Sabina Streeter’s paintings ,collages and drawings are based on archival material of real life figures of the period, including several prominent Sag Harbor whaling families. Since in many cases there were no adequate or sufficient references to be found Streeter decided to use contemporary Sag Harbor residents , some of them descendants of whalers sitting for her in historic costumes

Sabina Streeter’s studio at 25 Madison Street in Sag Harbor is the original residence of Sag Harbor whaling captain David P. Vail.(build 1820 by his father ,the shipbuilder Abraham Vail ), master of the great whaling ship the '' Sabina .”