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Long Island Museum

WUSB Sunday Street Series returns to the Long Island Museum Feb. 19

by Press Release - January 16, 2023

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The Long Island Museum, 1200 Route 25A, Stony Brook welcomes the return of the WUSB Sunday Street Series in the Gillespie Room of the Carriage Museum on Feb. 19 at 3 p.m. with a concert by Joe Jencks and Rod MacDonald.

Joe Jencks is a 22-year veteran of the international Folk circuit, an award-winning songwriter and a celebrated vocalist based in the Chicago area. He is known for his performances of musical beauty, social consciousness and spiritual exploration. Joe delivers engaged musical narratives filled with heart, soul, groove, and grit. Co-founder of the harmony trio Brother Sun, Jencks has penned several #1 Folksongs including the ever-relevant Lady of The Harbor. His 2022 release, ’ The Coming of the Years’ has become a favorite of critics. www.joejencks.com

Rod MacDonald began singing professionally in New York City, where he became a headliner in Greenwich Village clubs in the 1980s and recorded 21 songs now in the Smithsonian Folkways collection. He has 13 solo CDs, with 2014’s “Later That Night” making the top ten on national independent music charts, and three CDs with Big Brass Bed, which New Times named “Best Folk Band” in 2016. He is also Music Americana instructor with Osher Lifelong Learning at Florida Atlantic University, and was named Distinguished Faculty Member in 2012. Rod has been a regular in our annual Bob Dylan birthday celebrations.www.rodmacdonald.net

Tickets are $ 25.00 advance sale until February 17th at www.sundaystreet.org. Tickets at the door (cash only) are $30.

These concerts are a collaboration of WUSB’s Sunday Street Series, The Long Island Museum, and The Greater Port Jefferson Art’s Council.

Sunday Street concert series returns to Long Island Museum Oct. 23

by Press Release - October 17, 2022

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0-1 — Townes Van Zandt and Nanci Griffith

WUSB’s Sunday Street series returns to the Long Island Museum’s Gillespie Room in the Carriage Museum, 1200 Route 25A, Stony Brook on Sunday, Oct. 23 with a concert titled Nanci & Townes: Remembering Two Texas Troubadours at 5 p.m.

WUSB’S Sunday Series returns to live performances by continuing its tradition of honoring seminal singer-songwriters with an evening devoted to the songs of Nanci Griffith and Townes Van Zandt, two Texas-based artists.

Participating are Gene Casey, Delaney Hafener (of the Belle Curves), Caroline Doctorow, Bryan Gallo, Ray Lambiase, Mary Lamont w/ Jim Marchese, Pete Mancini, Gerry McKeveny, and Quarter Horse.

Pete Mancini will emcee the evening which will benefit the Sunday Street Series and WUSB.

The event is co-produced by Pete and Charlie Backfish and a collaboration of WUSB’s Sunday Street Series, The Long Island Museum, and The Greater Port Jefferson Art’s Council.

Nanci Griffith’s passing on August 13, 2021 was universally mourned in the music world. This Austin native received critical acclaim for a career that included sixteen original studio albums as well as two ‘covers’ collections, paying homage to songwriters who influenced her own writing. On the first of those two collections, ‘Other Voices, Other Rooms, she included her version of Townes Van Zandt’s ‘Tecumseh Valley.’ Her song, ‘Up Against the Rain’ is about Van Zandt.

Townes Van Zandt, from Fort Worth, has been considered influential not only by Nanci Griffith but by countless artists cutting across several musical genres. Many of his songs are regarded as masterpieces of songwriting with Steve Earle recently recording an entire album of them. Van Zandt passed away on New Year’s Day, 1997, at age 52. In the 2000’s, extensive interest in him resulted in two books and a documentary film.

Tickets are $ 20.00 at www.sundaystreet.org

Artoberfest heads to East Setauket

by Heidi Sutton - October 15, 2022

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Save the date! Join Preservation Long Island and the Long Island Museum for an Artoberfest, an afternoon of food, beer, music by Buddy Merriam & Backroads, arts and crafts, and games at the Sherwood-Jayne Farm, 55 Old Post Road, East Setauket on Saturday, Oct. 22 from noon to 5 p.m. The event is a celebration of the art of Edward Lange (1846-1912), whose works are currently on view at the Long Island Museum through Dec. 18. Rain date is Oct. 23. Tickets are $20/over 21, $10/under 21, free for ages 5 and under. To order tickets, visit www.preservationlongisland.org. For more information, call 631-692-4664.

The Long Island Museum welcomes two new sculptures

by Heidi Sutton - July 14, 2022

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By Heidi Sutton

They say two heads are better than one. How about two really BIG heads?

Two sculptures by artist Philip Grausman were unveiled on the grounds of the Long Island Museum (LIM) in Stony Brook last week. Grausman’s “Eileen,” 1993-1996, fiberglass, 10 feet high by 7.5 feet wide by 9 feet deep; and “Victoria,” 1999-2000, fiberglass, 14 feet high by 6.5 feet wide by 7.5 feet deep, will call the LIM home for a two year loan.

“The museum is thrilled to be able to bring fresh new art to our grounds, something for our visitors to enjoy and also something new to take in by the thousands of people who drive by our campus daily on Route 25A. Philip Grausman was prioritized as a great American figurative sculptor that we have wanted to work with for years, so we are so pleased to make this dream a reality. Budco Enterprises, Inc., from Hauppauge, donated their expertise and talent and did an amazing job installing these pieces,” said Long Island Museum’s Deputy Director Joshua Ruff.

‘Eileen’ by Philip Grausman will be on view at the Long Island Museum through July 2024. Photo by Heidi Sutton

Grausman’s earliest sculptures represented germinating buds and seeds, and this eventually led him to explore the underlying structure and form of the human head. A student of José Mariano de Creeft, a renowned sculptor of female heads and figurative forms, he trained at the Art Students League of New York and received his MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art in Michigan.

Grausman has participated in over 80 solo and group exhibitions at prestigious venues throughout the world and his work is included in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Brooklyn Museum, and the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford, CT.

His artist statement reads, “Since the early 1980’s, I have completed a number of monumentally scaled sculptures inspired from portrait heads originally modeled from life. These large-scaled heads are not portraits in a conventional sense. Rather, I view them as landscapes, an association expressed through a shared sense of scale. Fiberglass allows me to create and exhibit on a large scale. The whiteness of the forms appeals to me and suggests a drawing experience where the white page is transformed by line and contour. Creating each portrait sculpture is like sight-reading an unfamiliar musical score. It is the hidden geometry and interlocking volumes that inspire me.”

You can visit these impressive sculptures and others on the museum’s sprawling 9-acre campus at 1200 Route 25A, Stony Brook Thursdays through Sundays from noon to 5 p.m. For more information, visit www. longislandmuseum.org.

Long Island Museum awarded grant from Alzheimer’s Foundation of America

by Press Release - July 6, 2022

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The Alzheimer’s Foundation of America (AFA) has awarded the Long Island Museum a $6,000 grant to support the Museum’s “In the Moment” program, a free program designed to creatively engage those living with dementia-related illnesses and their care partners.

Created in 2011, this innovative program takes individuals living with dementia and their care partners on guided tours of the museum’s collection of art, historical objects, and seasonal exhibits. Additionally, the program offers hands-on art workshops which afford opportunities for creative expression, with all needed materials provided for free.

All programs are led by museum educators and designed to be cognitively stimulating. Programming is currently offered virtually through Zoom and as a hybrid, in-person/virtual option. Since its inception, the program served more than 3,200 individuals, according to the Museum.

“This AFA grant has allowed us to purchase a 75” Vibe Smartboard Pro to use as we return to in-person programming,” said Lisa Unander, Director of Education at the Long Island Museum. “We are building upon the lessons we learned through remote engagement and bringing the most successful aspects of these virtual programs to enhance our gallery sessions. Specifically, we have seen how powerful short video clips are as a way to engage and bring themes to life. With this grant, we won’t have to lose techniques we now heavily rely on, but instead will be able to incorporate these tools to create even more memorable multi-sensory moments together.

“Art can be a powerful tool to enhance quality of life for individuals living with a dementia-related illness and their caregivers. It stimulates the mind and creates opportunities for self-expression and socialization,” said Charles J. Fuschillo, Jr., AFA’s president and chief executive officer. “We are proud to support the Long Island Museum in delivering this impactful program to Long Islanders affected by Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias.”

LIM honors Cindy M. Smith, arts patron, at Women Artists’ reception

by TBR Staff - June 23, 2022

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Cindy M. Smith was over many years an enthusiastic champion of Long Island artists. She and her husband Warren Strugatch shared the art collecting bug, owning landscapes and abstractions by Ty Stroudsburg, Nan Kemp, Doug Reina and many others. In nice weather, the Stony Brook couple climbed into their white Miata, put the top down, and toured art spaces between Manhattan and Montauk. Whether they bought or not, they offered words of encouragement to artists, praising what they liked and asking where the artists would be exhibiting next.

Over time they struck up many artworld friendships. The pair frequently invited painters and other creative folks to visit them in their sprawling, sun-drenched home off Stony Brook Road where the works they collected went on display.

Cindy gave special encouragement to women artists, her husband said. “I think she realized that many women must work harder to be taken seriously as artists. She was highly empathetic to that. When she bought a painting from a female artist, she felt she was not only saying the right thing, but doing the right thing, too.”

Sadly, Cindy passed away Feb. 15 after a long battle with leukemia. The Long Island Museum has dedicated its current exhibition, “Two Centuries of Women Artists,” to her memory. On June 9th the museum held a reception for “Two Centuries,” which Joshua Ruff, the museum’s deputy director, said was one “Cindy would have loved.”

“We miss her greatly,” Ruff said, “not least because she lived her passion for the arts every day. Without passion, the arts wither. Without inclusivity, the arts deflate. She and Warren helped establish connections to some of the finest artists we have added to our campus is recent years. Their boundless energy boosted our exhibition openings, energized our concerts, and bolstered our community.”

Warren, who sponsored the reception in his wife’s memory, said that he would be leaving their house in Stony Brook as it was now “too big just for me.” A writer and consultant, he is keeping their art trove intact. He plans to transport it and much of the couple’s Midcentury Modern furniture collection to his new apartment in Astoria.

“The walls are pretty tall” in his new apartment, he said. “I’m pretty sure there will be room for all the art we collected. Seeing the art every day helps keep Cindy in mind for me. Her enthusiasm was true and contagious.”

See video footage of the reception below.

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The Long Island Museum announces retirement of Executive Director Neil Watson

by Press Release - May 11, 2022

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unnamed-5 — Executive Director of the Long Island Museum, Neil Watson (center) with his successors, Joshua Ruff (left) and Sarah Abruzzi (right) on the grounds of the LIM in front of the sculpture by Hans Van de Bovenkamp, “Montauk Sun & Moon,” 1986. Photo by Kristin Cuomo

Deputy Directors Sarah Abruzzi and Joshua Ruff named as successors

The Long Island Museum (LIM) in Stony Brook a Smithsonian affiliate dedicated to American history and art with a Long Island connection, announced May 5 that Executive Director, Neil Watson, will retire in October of 2022. During his nine years of dedicated leadership to the LIM, Watson introduced visitors to award winning exhibitions and educational programs, increased Museum membership, and enhanced musical programs. Along with Watson’s retirement, the LIM’s Board of Trustees also announced that the LIM’s current Deputy Directors, Sarah Abruzzi and Joshua Ruff will succeed Watson as Co-Executive Directors of the LIM.

“Neil Watson’s contributions to the Long Island Museum have been beyond measure,” said Thomas M. Sullivan, the LIM’s Board of Trustees Chair. “His leadership and vision transformed the Museum into a more dynamic and representative reflection of our history and art. By assembling a fantastic group of talented people who shared his vision for how the museum serves the community, it is without question that Neil Watson had a transformative impact on the Long Island Museum.”

Since 2013, under Watson’s distinguished leadership, the LIM reopened the History Museum, initiated a new outdoor sculpture program and partnered with local organizations, such as the Sunday Street singer/songwriter series and North Shore Pro Musica, to bring a chamber music series to the community. During Watson’s tenure, the Museum’s annual operating budget has grown to nearly 3 million dollars and the Museum’s Endowment funds have doubled to over 40 million dollars. He also created a new level of membership to enhance and support the rich artistic talent on Long Island, entitled LIMarts: A Collaborative Arts Group, which currently has over 125 active artist members and offers the opportunity and space for the exhibition and sale of artwork.

“Retirement is never an easy decision, but it is even more difficult when you love what you do,” said Watson. “Here at LIM we are all dedicated to the idea that a museum can tell stories about who we are, through art, craft, history, music, and film. I could not be prouder of our accomplishments over the past nine years. Part of a director’s job is to imagine the future, and I felt strongly that we had two people in place who had the vision to take on the dual leadership model. Creative solutions make for creative outcomes, and the LIM culture is about trust, respect, and innovative thinking. I’m thankful to the Board, who were open to implementing a different model of museum leadership. I have the utmost confidence that Sarah and Joshua will bring their enthusiasm and expertise to guide the Museum into the next phase. As I take my exit, I can only thank them, the Board of Trustees, the gifted staff, and the community for giving me the most fulfilling years of my career.”

Sarah Abruzzi is an accomplished executive and fundraising professional with over 20 years of experience in the non-profit sector. Throughout her career, she has worked in all aspects of museum operations, including education, interpretation, collections management, volunteer coordination, fundraising, finance, HR, communications, and government relations.

Abruzzi grew up in Port Jefferson and remembers with great fondness her childhood visits to the LIM with her family. She first worked at the LIM in the late 2000s before spending eight years outside of the museum field serving as the lead fundraiser for Dr. Richard Leakey’s Kenya-based human origins research project at Stony Brook University. Abruzzi jumped at the chance to return to the LIM in 2017 as Director of Major Gifts and Special Projects. Abruzzi’s amiable management style and thoughtful approach to leadership paved the way for her promotion to Deputy Director/Director of Advancement & External Affairs in February 2019. Additionally, she previously served as Director of Raynham Hall Museum in Oyster Bay, and The Three Village Historical Society in Setauket.

Entering his 25th year at the LIM, including the last three as a Deputy Director and the last nine as the Director of Collections & Interpretation, managing both the Curatorial and Education departments, Joshua Ruff has a proven track record of strong leadership, excellence, and versatility as well as years of expertise in all facets of museum operations.

A lifelong resident of New York State, he is a graduate of Syracuse University with BAs in Broadcast Journalism and in History, and Stony Brook University with a MA in History. After curating or co-curating nearly 70 exhibitions of a variety of scale and scope and many publications, Ruff is a recognized scholar of Long Island art and history, two crucial components of the Museum’s mission. In addition to co-authoring several books and exhibition catalogs, his articles have appeared in publications including the Magazine Antiques; American Art Review; New York Archives Magazine; and American History magazine. Beyond his work at the Long Island Museum, Ruff has served in a variety of service capacities for outside organizations, including as Grant Reviewer for NYSCA’s Museum Program (2015-2018) and as an incoming member of the Board of Directors for the Museum Association of New York (2022-2025).

“Neil Watson has been such a dynamic and collaborative leader for this museum, and we have learned and gained so much from him. We will miss him,” said Joshua Ruff, Deputy Director and Director of Collections & Interpretation at the LIM. “Sarah and I are thankful to the Board for this leadership opportunity and we are really excited for this new chapter. We’ll work hard with all our talented colleagues to take the LIM to new and exciting achievements,” Ruff continued.

“Neil’s humility and humor have helped shape the LIM into the treasured community resource it is today,” said Sarah Abruzzi, Deputy Director and Director of Advancement & External Affairs. “Josh and I are honored to be a special part of Neil’s legacy and look forward to continuing his tradition of honest, inclusive, and transparent leadership in service of the Museum, our colleagues, and the community we all care so deeply about.”

The new organizational structure builds upon the strong and collaborative work environment that Watson cultivated at the LIM during his tenure. Over the past several years, the three have worked closely with the rest of the LIM’s talented Senior Staff to create a culture of equability and opportunity among the entire LIM staff of 39 people. Watson’s visionary plan of streamlining LIM’s work flow into two main areas will take place in October with Ruff responsible for Collections and Programming, and Abruzzi responsible for Operations.

“I can’t stress enough how supportive and instrumental Neil was to the expansion of the LIM’s Education Department,” said Lisa Unander, Director of Education at the Long Island Museum since 2013 and at the Museum for the past 16 years.

“His unique non-hierarchical and highly creative approach can be credited for how the LIM has been able to push the boundaries of our programs and become the even more inclusive community centered organization it is today. It won’t be the same without him, but he has instilled a welcoming, positive and vibrant workplace culture that I know Sarah and Joshua will continue to build upon as they continue the museum’s mission,” Unander continued.

Exhibitions during Watson’s career at the LIM include the groundbreaking Long Road to Freedom: Surviving Slavery on Long Island, the first major museum project to examine slavery from a Long Island regional historical perspective, Walt Whitman’s Arcadia: Long Island Through the Eyes of a Poet & Painters to mark the American bard’s 200th Birthday, and Fire & Form: New Directions in Glass, a visually striking exhibition featuring more than 50 works from nine contemporary artists.

Watson is known for his community engagement and charismatic style, and while serving as the Executive Director of the Katonah Museum of Art for nearly eight years, he also served on the Board of the Katonah Chamber of Commerce, as well as the Board of Arts Westchester, and as a museum panelist for the New York State Council for the Arts (NYSCA). Prior to joining the LIM, Watson was the former Chief Curator of the Museum of Glass in Tacoma, Washington and the former Curator of Contemporary Art at the Norton Museum of Art in West Palm Beach, FL.

About the Long Island Museum

Located at 1200 Route 25A in Stony Brook, the Long Island Museum is a Smithsonian Affiliate dedicated to enhancing the lives of adults and children with an understanding of Long Island’s rich history and diverse cultures. Regular museum hours are Thursday through Sunday from noon to 5 p.m. Admission is $10 for adults, $7 for seniors, and $5 for students 6 -17 and college students with I.D. Children under six are admitted for free. For more information visit longislandmuseum.org.

Long Island Museum highlights Brookhaven National Lab with Atoms to Cosmos exhibit

by Melissa Arnold - April 21, 2022

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D2770119 — Milinda Abeykoon, lead beamline scientist at Pair Distribution Function Beamline, NSLS-II, aligning a sample holder for high-speed measurements, 2019. Photo courtesy of BNL

By Melissa Arnold

Over the past 75 years, Brookhaven National Lab (BNL) in Upton has become an international hub for innovative research and problem-solving. Their hard work has led to advancements in energy, medicine, physics and more, as well as seven Nobel Prizes.

A scientist at a fast neutron chopper at the Brookhaven Graphite Research Reactor (BGRR), 1953. Photo courtesy of BNL

This year, the Long Island Museum in Stony Brook will celebrate the lab’s myriad achievements and explore their deep roots in the area. The new exhibit, titled Atoms to Cosmos: The Story of Brookhaven National Laboratory, opens April 21.

BNL and the Long Island Museum started working on ideas for a future exhibition back in 2018 with plans to open in April of 2020. But as with other museums, the pandemic led to a halt in operations.

In some ways, the rescheduled timing of the exhibit is better than their initial plans.

“While the exhibition was temporarily shelved, both the lab and the museum wanted very much to still make it happen. We had done so much work in advance and preparation for it in 2020, and so we really wanted to get back to this opportunity,” said Joshua Ruff, Deputy Director and Director of Collections and Interpretation for the Long Island Museum. “We are especially pleased we were able to do it now, as it fits nicely with the lab’s 75th anniversary celebration.”

Brookhaven National Laboratory was founded in 1947 at the former site of the U.S. Army’s Camp Upton, becoming the first large research facility in the Northeast. At the time, they were exploring peaceful ways to utilize atomic energy.

“The BNL site has been in federal ownership since 1917 when it became the location of Camp Upton. Before that, the site was used for the cordwood industry and there was a small farm near the eastern edge of what is now the lab,” explained Timothy Green, BNL’s Environmental Compliance Section manager. “After World War I, all of the buildings were sold at auction and the site sat empty until around 1934, when it was declared the Upton National Forest and the Civilian Conservation Corps started planting trees. At the end of World War II [and a second period as Camp Upton], the land was transferred to the Atomic Energy Commission and became Brookhaven National Laboratory.”

It took some time for local residents to adjust to having a laboratory in the area, Ruff said.

A Positron Emission Tomography Halo Scanner/Detector.
Photo courtesy of BNL

“The lab has often been misunderstood in its past, in fact from its origins. Many Suffolk County residents were not entirely sure that atomic research was safe, nor did they fully understand the relevance and significance [of that research] to their lives,” he explained. “The lab devoted years of hard work and financial resources to strengthen public dialogue and communication, which the exhibition details.”

Today, the lab employs almost 3,000 people and spans 5,320 acres.

The exhibit is co-curated by Joshua Ruff and Long Island Museum curator Jonathan Olly. They’ve included more than 140 items that showcase the lab’s growth and varied discoveries from the 1950s to the present day. The Smithsonian Museum of American History in Washington is lending four of the objects, including a 1,000-pound, 94-inch square magnet lamina from the Cosmotron, BNL’s first major particle accelerator.

Another 40 objects are coming directly from the lab. Their contribution includes equipment from their facilities, personal belongings of former director Maurice Goldhaber, and “Atoms for Peace,” a famous painting that came to symbolize the lab’s work in its early years.

“A lot of the scientific research at BNL over the years has involved [developing] and testing cutting edge technologies. When these machines are no longer useful they’re usually recycled. Fortunately we do have two examples in the exhibition of early PET (Positron Emission Tomography) scanners, one from 1961 and another from 1981,” Olly said. “In the case of these early machines, the focus was on the brain — the machines used radiation sensors arranged in a ring to produce a picture of a slice of your brain. Brookhaven scientists have used this PET technology (specifically the PETT VI scanner in the exhibition) in studying drug and alcohol addiction, eating disorders, ADHD, aging, and neurodegenerative disorders. The 1961 version is a prototype that was never used on patients.”

Also on view are an original chalkboard from the Graphite Research Reactor that still has writing on it; a 7-foot window from a bubble chamber that helped track the paths of atomic particles; and a detector that aided BNL chemist Raymond Davis Jr. in his Nobel Prize-winning neutrino research.

Recently, the lab was a part of the ongoing effort to study and contain COVID-19. The exhibit will include a model of the virus, with the familiar spiky shape that’s become commonplace since the pandemic began.

“Scientists at the lab’s National Synchrotron Light Source II worked on imaging the virus and the proteins … that allowed it to attach to human cells. At the same time, BNL computer scientists began developing algorithms to evaluate existing chemicals and drugs that could potentially prevent infection. One past experiment by [BNL biophysicist] William Studier, the T7 expression system, ended up being critical to the rapid development of two of the vaccines,” Green said.

Both the Long Island Museum and BNL staff hope that visitors to the exhibit come away with a deeper interest in science and an appreciation for the lab’s work.

“There are 17 national laboratories scattered throughout the United States, and Long Islanders can be proud to have one in their backyard. Long Island children have been inspired to pursue careers in science as a result of attending educational programs at the lab during public visitor days dating back to the 1950s. And the lab is invested in addressing our real-world problems, whether the dangers posed by DDT on Long Island in the 1960s or COVID now. This summer BNL should be resuming their “Summer Sundays” visitor program, and I encourage everyone to visit the lab, walk around, talk to staff, and get a glimpse of our scientific present and future,” Olly said.

Atoms to Cosmos: The Story of Brookhaven National Lab is on view now through Oct. 16 in the Long Island Museum’s History Museum and Visitor Center’s Main Gallery, 1200 Rt. 25A, Stony Brook. Regular museum hours are Thursday through Sunday from noon to 5 p.m. Masks are required at this time, though health and safety guidelines are subject to change Admission is $10 for adults, $7 for seniors, and $5 for students 6 to 17 and college students with I.D. Children under six are admitted for free. Tickets are available at the door; pre-registration is not required. For more information visit longislandmuseum.org or call 631-751-0066.

Learn more about Brookhaven National Lab at www.BNL.gov.

Long Island Museum dedicates latest exhibit in memory of Cindy Smith

by Heidi Sutton - March 27, 2022

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The Long Island Museum in Stony Brook has dedicated its current exhibit, Two Centuries of Long Island Women Artists, 1800-2000, to the memory of arts patroness and community activist Cindy M. Smith, a Stony Brook resident and long-time supporter of local artists.

The sign placed near the exhibit entrance reads: “This exhibition is dedicated to the memory of Cindy M. Smith, a strong advocate for the arts and historic preservation in our community.” Ms. Smith, a Smithtown native who died last month of leukemia, was a frequent visitor to the museum as well as local galleries and cultural events across Long Island.

“Cindy was a passionate advocate for the arts as well as historic preservation, and quality of life in general on the North Shore,” said Warren Strugatch, her husband. “She felt women artists faced greater obstacles to success than men, and had to work harder to achieve recognition. She would have been first on line to see the exhibition if she were still alive.”

The well-reviewed exhibition includes works by such iconic women artists as Lee Krasner and Elaine de Kooning, as well as such contemporaries as April Gornik, Audrey Flack, and Jennifer Bartlett. The exhibition continues through Sept. 4. For more information, visit www.longislandmuseum.org.

Long Island Museum reopens to the public March 3 with two new exhibits

by Press Release - March 2, 2022

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'Sagaponack' by Cecile Gray Bazelon will be on view at the museum through Sept. 4. Image from LIM

The Long Island Museum (LIM) has announced it will reopen to the public on March 3, 2022 after a seasonal closure. The museum will invite visitors to explore two new exhibitions, Two Centuries of Long Island Women Artists, 1800-2000 and The 23rd annual Colors of Long Island Student Art Exhibition.

Two Centuries of Long Island Women Artists, 1800-2000, on view from March 3 to Sept. 4, is an exhibition that aims to provide a survey of the history of women artists on Long Island, exploring and emphasizing their significance, which has reverberated far beyond this region.

Visiting Curator and Assistant Director at Questroyal Fine Art, Inc. Nina Sangimino, along with LIM Curators, Joshua Ruff and Jonathan Olly, took part in this project that draws from LIM’s own collection, private collections, and the collections of museums that include the Parrish Museum of Art, the Heckscher Museum of Art, and Guild Hall.

The exhibition will present over 80 works from close to 70 different artists, both celebrated and those that are relatively lesser-known, from different eras and a diverse set of backgrounds, stylistic approaches, and materials.

“Focusing an exhibition entirely on women’s contributions to art history, in this region, is an exciting opportunity for the LIM,” said Joshua Ruff, Deputy Director, Director of Collections and Interpretations at the Long Island Museum. “There are internationally-renowned artists in this exhibition, such as Grace Hartigan and April Gornik. But we also are presenting the work of less famous women artists who have had far less coverage but deserve to be known,” said Ruff.

The LIM’s 23rd annual Colors of Long Island Student Art Exhibition, on view from March 3 to April 3, affords an opportunity for hundreds of students from across Long Island to display their artwork in a museum setting. Art teachers from Long Island’s public and private schools in grades pre-k through 12th grade were invited to submit up to two pieces of student artwork for the exhibition.

Traditionally, the theme, “Colors of Long Island,” allows for many creative interpretations. While some students refer to Long Island’s landscapes, others prefer to focus on the cultural diversity that makes Long Island so beautiful. The varying interpretations of this theme will be portrayed through a selection of media, including watercolor, sculpture, pencil, ink, oil pastel, photographs and computer graphics.

“The museum’s education department is excited to return to hosting student artwork in our History Museum gallery,” said Kristin Cuomo, Senior Educator at the Long Island Museum.

“This year’s exhibition features 107 schools from across Nassau and Suffolk, with work from over 200 students in grades pre-k through 12 displayed. The art spans a variety of styles and media, reflecting the talent and dedication of our teachers and young people. As a whole, the gallery reflects the joy of creativity and the excitement of being able to once again exhibit in person,” she said.

In addition to exploring the new exhibitions, visitors are also welcome to explore the state-of-the-art Carriage Museum, which includes eight renovated galleries that tell the story of transportation before the automobile.

The Long Island Museum is located at 1200 Route 25A, Stony Brook. Hours are Thursday through Sunday from noon to 5 p.m. For more information, call 631-751-0066 or visit www.longislandmuseum.org.

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