The first thing you notice is the light. The pears are mere suggestions of themselves, with hints of blue and green that pool at the ends and edges. They fall into each other, luminous and impossibly airy. Shadows bloom beneath them in gray and blue. Even the paper seems to glow with a warm crispness. At the lower right, a signature from Constance LaPalombara graces the page.

Friends, family, and members of New Haven’s arts community are mourning LaPalombara this month, as news of her death makes its way across the city and into the wider world. A talented painter, sharp-tongued conversationalist, fashion icon, voracious reader, de facto teacher and generous friend, LaPalombara passed away Feb. 14 in Hamden at the age of 87. At the time, she was living at the Whitney Center and still painting at a studio in the MarlinWorks Building on Willow Street.