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This week Billy Sullivan went on the move - from Guild Hall, where a retrospective of his oils, pastels and cibachromes had been on view since mid-August - to Rebbeca Cooper's Gallery Sag Harbor. Actually, of the many pieces at the recently closed exhibit, only "Delia" moved to The Gallery - Sullivan's 1973 pastel and acrylic portrait of downtown underground designer Delia Doherty, one of the ambient personalities who spun around Warhol in The Factory days.

Delia's now the cover girl for the 15th Annual Hamptons International Film Festival, positioned on the official guide, and now also on The Gallery Sag Harbor's wall in the room to the right of the entrance. Sullivan shows her in cinematic mode - a film noir empress of ennui - elbow-angled in a black low-cut dress, contemplative, tough-looking, her short, dark corkscrew hair capping her head which is tilted up slightly, catching the light. But her eyes are downcast, the look is faraway. A wispy black scarf circles her chin, a lacy tendril draping onto a partially exposed breast. The lips are free-form outline red. She's dragging on a cigarette, one hand about to scissor it, the other resting on material of some sort - a bed? The scene is typical of Billy Sullivan and eminently suitable for HIFF.

HIFF Executive Director Gianna Chachere calls Sullivan a "natural fit" for the film festival, a discerning choice suggested by Michael Lynne, co-chair of HIFF and co-CEO, with his wife Ninah, of New Line Cinema. A long-time art collector and member of the Board of HIFF, Lynne thought Sullivan would be a good match for the 15th anniversary year, a reminder of the festival's avant-garde, alternative-art early days, and also a celebration of what's now a major cultural event, attracting emerging and established artists from all over the world, some of whom, like Billy Sullivan, still choose to honor their Hamptons heritage. Sullivan's visits to the East End go back to the 70s, when he was relatively unknown. Within a few years, however, all that would change and Sullivan would become Whitney Biennial material. As Rebecca Cooper points out, when you look at art in major exhibitions, check the attribution. The Sullivan oil-on- canvas "Kynaston" (2001), for example, recently seen at Guild Hall, was on loan from MoMA.

Sullivan's paintings are distinctive for their unselfconscious, off-hand, intimate poses of the artist's friends or acquaintances captured at a particular moment, in conversation, solitary musing, athletic display, totally indifferent to being observed. Some have attitude, others are totally absorbed by inner thoughts, even (especially?) when they are with someone. Sullivan often provocatively places his subjects in scenes that contain little or no information about where they are or why they are there.

"Delia" has an appropriate showcase at The Gallery Sag Harbor. Rebecca Cooper, whose roots as a collector go back to the days of Warhol and Basquiat, was one of the first to champion the unconventional, edgy, psychedelic art that began to find its way onto posters and would soon come to define a new genre on the art scene. The HIFF poster retrospective includes work by some of The East End's best known artists, some - Eric Fischl, April Gornik, David Salle - represented twice. Ms. Cooper has done a thoughtful job mounting the pictures, considering who goes best with whom. Julian Schnabel's unsettling textured brown on beige letter design for 2001, for example, hangs a right angle away from Sullivan's Delia, thus not competing with it in color, composition or style. Donald Sultan's 1996 witty Film Reel, in various hues of black and gray, boldly claims attention (note that pear-shape among the circles) alongside Fischl's 2002 warm-toned, slightly out-of-focus, light-inflected bedroom scene.

For 2006, Cindy Sherman shot a foreground 50s-looking chick, mouth ajar, taking in the sun on an empty dock. A deeply angled pier warehouse recedes to a vanishing point way off to the left, the whole a perfectly balanced juxtaposition of odd images in black and white. Dan Rizzie, sans crows, provided for 1999 a joyous painting of colored circles spouting forth a stalk and star fish, the symbol of HIFF. Jim Gingerich's 2002 multicolored impressionistic field, with runner, lower left lettering picking up the white of the clouds, nostalgically reminds viewers, like a mid-50s film, of The East End's glorious (but endangered) landscape. Donald Baechler's 1997 pop art faces stare out, not too far from "Delia". A room away, Barbara Krueger's 2003 gauzy black and green fingers with light bulb starkly highlight HIFF in red, while across the room April Gornick's beautiful 1995 low-horizon sweep of sky reflects quietly onto a peaceful sea. There's also a luminous signature Ross Bleckner for 2004, and a strikingly festive composition of discordant images (is that a Maltese Falcon in the lower right?) of diverse subject matter and style by David Salle for 1994.

This is The Gallery Sag Harbor's third year as a HIFF sponsor. For details following panel discussions at Bay Street, call for details: 631-725-7707.

Joan Baum lives in Springs and covers literature and the arts for print and radio.