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Boodys Donate Second Artwork to Town Hall

Old Saybrook Town Hall has received a second gift of art from Sallie and Robert Boody. A photograph of the Outer Light in Fenwick by local artist and photographer Steve Cryan now hangs in the small entrance hall, in front and above the visitor upon entering the building.

“I saw this photograph that [Cryan] had done of the Outer Light and the sun was setting,” said Robert Boody. “[H]e was on a boat and he took the picture just as the light from the sunset came through the light of the lighthouse.

The photograph hung in the Boodys’ home until they remodeled it, at which point they gave the photograph to their neighbor, Ted Pigeon. Pigeon, a close friend for whom the Boodys cared for roughly a dozen years until his death at 91 last month, enjoyed painting, and his favorite subjects were barns and lighthouses.

“He took art lessons because I signed him up,” Sallie Boody said. “He didn’t want to take [the classes], but he painted beautifully. Everybody wanted his paintings when he died.”

Pigeon had no family and the Boodys are preparing his house for sale.

“We’re so pleased that there was a place to donate [the photograph],” said Robert Boody.

The Boodys’s previous gift to the town was a painting of Great Cedars Conservation area by David Brown, another local artist.

“We also had a 6’ x 8’ Connecticut flag that we donated [to Town Hall],” said Boody; the town plans to hang the flag in one of the Town Hall stairwells.