Reboli Center for Art and History in Stony Brook

The Reboli Center for Art and History occupies a landmarked former bank building at 64 Main Street in Stony Brook Village. It was created to keep the work of the painter Joseph Reboli on public view, and it has grown into a small gallery with rotating exhibitions, workshops and community events. This profile outlines the artist’s career, how the center came to exist, what a visit typically includes and where to confirm current details.

The artist

Joseph Reboli lived from 1945 to 2004. According to Wikipedia’s biographical entry, he studied at the Paier School of Art in New Haven, Connecticut, from 1964 to 1967 under the realist painter Ken Davies, served in the U.S. Army and was assigned to the Army Exhibit Unit in Alexandria, Virginia, until his release in 1969. His first solo exhibition took place in 1971 at Gallery North in Setauket. Through the 1980s and 1990s, a SoHo gallery represented him, and he continued to show at Gallery North in the 2000s. Wikipedia credits him with five museum exhibitions and more than twenty solo shows.

Two milestones stand out. The Museums at Stony Brook, known today as the Long Island Museum, held a retrospective in 1998 with 55 works spanning his thirty-year career. In 1999 he was one of fourteen artists in the White House Historical Association’s White House Impressions project, representing New York. A TBR News Media article on a later exhibit explains that the project produced the 2000 White House calendar, that Reboli painted March, and that he was the only one of the artists to paint from inside the building, with a view looking out toward the South Portico and the Jefferson Memorial beyond.

Subjects and style are consistent across published descriptions. Wikipedia calls him a Realist painter known for oil paintings of local landscapes and scenes from the Three Village area and the East End, and the TBR article describes more than three decades of mostly oil work, many depicting the Three Village area. He died on June 4, 2004, at age 58, according to Wikipedia. Sources disagree on his birthplace, so none is given here.

How the center came to be

The center’s origin is a community fundraising story. A November 2015 article reports that the nonprofit Friends of Joseph Reboli formed to collect, preserve and exhibit his work, that word of a bank leaving the Main Street building surfaced in March 2015, and that a state grant of $1.3 million secured with help from Assemblyman Steve Englebright went toward the $1.8 million purchase, supplemented by two anonymous donations of $150,000 each. Lois Reboli signed the purchase contract on September 25, 2015, which would have been her husband’s seventieth birthday, and a ribbon-cutting followed on November 10, 2015.

A January 2017 Dan’s Papers feature reports that the center opened the day after Thanksgiving 2016 in the former Bank of Suffolk County building, which it calls the only commercial building still standing in its original location in the village of Stony Brook, across the street from Reboli’s childhood home. The article names Lois Reboli, Colleen Hanson and B.J. Intini as the founders and quotes the stated mission to “promote, educate and inspire the public” about Reboli’s life and works, other artists, and Long Island history.

In a December 2017 TBR News Media story marking the center’s first full year, Lois Reboli summed up the achievement in a single line: “This is a miracle.” The same article describes the building as a white A-frame structure with blue awnings.

Hours and admission

The center’s official website lists hours of Tuesday through Saturday from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Sunday from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m., with no Monday hours given. It states that entry is always free to the public during regular business hours. The telephone number is 631.751.7707. Parts of the site still carry placeholder text, so the schedule is worth confirming by phone before a long trip.

Exhibitions on the schedule

The center rotates its shows through the year. As listed on the official site, the current and upcoming schedule includes the following.

• Works on Paper, August 25 to November 1, 2026. Features Reboli and New York-based artists, with a tribute to Sukie (Susanne Rebecca) Zeeve.
• Emerging Artist Spotlight, September 1 to October 31, 2026. Presents Kathleen Hartonchik, described as a 23-year-old Long Island artist. The site also offers a nomination form for future spotlight artists.
• Celebrate the Season, November 3, 2026 to January 3, 2027. The annual winter exhibition, with more than forty invited contemporary artists and artisans shown alongside Reboli’s work. The featured artist is Laura Westlake.

An Artisan of the Month program pairs the main galleries with handmade goods. The site names Andrea Ingrassia for October and Patricia Patten of Silver Dollar Pottery and Crafts in Rocky Point for November.

Workshops and events

Programs listed on the website include a Pastel Painting Workshop led by Patty Yantz on October 25, 2026, from 10:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.; a Trick or Treating for Littles event on October 31 with crafts, spooky music and trick-or-treating at the information desk; and a Pendant Workshop with Jo Wadler on November 8, which uses rubber stamping with enamel on copper. The workshop page notes that registration is non-refundable and non-exchangeable. From October 1 to November 20, a Thanksgiving food drive accepts non-perishable, non-expired food in a collection basket in the foyer.

The 2017 Dan’s Papers piece describes monthly Third Friday programs, and the center’s website refers to a Third Friday evening each month. Readers can check the events page for the current date and format. The center also offers private event rentals and guided tours by request, according to its navigation links.

A virtual tour of the interior is available through Google Maps, which gives a sense of the layout before a visit.

Mission beyond the gallery walls

The 2017 Dan’s Papers feature says the center’s long-term goal is to help make the Three Villages a center for arts and history on Long Island, working with other nonprofits and educational institutions. The 2015 article describes a related plan for a Reboli atelier running an education program at a Flowerfield facility, teaching contemporary painting grounded in classical drawing and painting. Whether that program continues in the same form is not addressed on the center’s current homepage, so readers interested in classes should ask the center directly.

The same 2015 article notes that the first Reboli Wet Paint Festival weekend was held in 2005 at Gallery North, a year after the artist’s death. The festival is a separate event from the center, and the pages reviewed here give no 2026 date for it.

A past exhibition as an example

The center’s programming often places Reboli beside peers and mentors. The 2019 to 2020 exhibit described in the TBR article ran from November 1, 2019 to January 26, 2020 and featured his painting View from the Red Room, the 2000 White House calendar, and original work from nine of the fourteen artists in the project, among them Al Alexander, Carol Aronson-Shore, Marilyn Caldwell, Ken Davies, Domenic DiStefano, Ray Ellis, West Fraser and Richard Grosvenor. The 2017 TBR story likewise records that early shows displayed work by Ken Davies, Reboli’s teacher and mentor, and egret photographs by Donna Crinnian, and that exhibits rotated about every three months.

That rotation explains why a return visit often shows a different room. Reboli’s own paintings stay central, while the surrounding work changes with the season, as the current schedule above shows.

The book

The center sells a special edition hardcover, Joseph Reboli: Between Here and There, curated by the lifelong friends Richard Newman and Patti Keelin together with Lois Reboli. The site lists it at $45.00 plus shipping, domestic US only.

Context in Stony Brook Village

The gallery sits within walking distance of the village’s other cultural stops. The Long Island Museum, a short drive away on Route 25A, holds the largest collection of William Sidney Mount’s work according to a 2016 Village Times Herald profile, which gives the two institutions a loose thematic link in Three Village painting. Background on the surrounding area appears in the existing Stony Brook neighborhood guide. This article is general information only.

Hours, programs and prices change; confirm details with the official sources linked above before visiting.

Sources

• Reboli Center for Art and History (official site)
• Joseph Reboli (Wikipedia)
• Dan's Papers: Cover Artist Joseph Reboli Remembered at New Gallery
• Stony Brook art community banks on Reboli (TBR News Media, 2015)
• Reboli Center keeps memory of late artist alive (TBR News Media, 2017)
• Reboli Center honors artistic connections to White House history (TBR News Media)