Elaine (Romagnoli) Hardie

Elaine Romagnoli Hardie of White Plains, NY passed away in the early hours of the morning on December 13th, 2023. She leaves behind two daughters, two sons, four grandchildren, nieces and nephews, cousins, and many others who loved and admired her. Elaine was predeceased by her husband John by 20 years. She was a lifelong artist who studied at Manhattan's Hunter College under Robert Motherwell, among others, and who produced a large body of beautiful work. Throughout her 92 years, Elaine also taught fine art and art education to students and teachers. Please send flowers and cards to Ballard-Durand Funeral Home in White Plains, NY. Graveside burial will be held at Gates of Heaven Cemetery in Hawthorne, NY on Friday, December 22nd at 11:00 am.

"My Mother is the brightest, bravest, kindest, gentlest person I'll ever know, the most brilliant and humble teacher, most talented creative mentor, and most cherished friend I'll ever have. I love you, Mommy." --Lisa Hardie

"I know it's customary to say something hopeful about my mother's death--that we'll meet again one day, that she's in a better place, etc--but all I know right now is the moment my mother died, a light that can never be relit went out forever. I love you, Mommy." --Leslie Hardie

"I've had the pleasure of knowing Elaine for the past 20 years. I'm grateful for the time I had with her; it was my honor to care for her and help her transition to her next stage, whatever lies beyond. I'm a better person for having known her. Love Always." --Tammy Wood

"Elaine R. Hardie's memory is one of heft and gifts. Not gifts to others, though she was movingly magnanimous with material things, practical advice and intuitive instruction. No, her truest gifts are visible in her legacy of paintings and the evolution they reveal. As talented as she was trained, Elaine Hardie was a student of abstract expressionist Robert Motherwell. She was among the first painters of her period to return to representation, informing it with the textures and techniques of abstract art. Her revelatory work was probably dismissed as trivial in her day -- a woman painting flowers, even as loud mavericks around her stabbed or sprayed the canvas -- but in retrospect, Elaine Hardie and not her famous teacher prophesied the artistic trajectory of later decades. Motivic unities, poetic correlations, the sheen of finesse and the explosions of color we associate with someone like Gerhard Richter -- all were present in her work as early as the 1950s. As time speeds forward and later artists seek inspiration in the precedents of earlier work, Elaine Hardie's stupefying technique, her symphonic hillsides of daisies and hydrangeas after years of confecting portraits that remain as studious as Picasso's early work -- all of it will show that her adventurous perfectionism flourished in the shadows of her generation's perishable obsessions. She will be recognized as great despite her humility and habit of placing others' needs and names above her own. I believe that her importance will only bloom over time. I believe that future museum visitors will wonder how Elaine Hardie's genius could ever have been kept secret." --Rob Hardin