Evelyn Beatrice Longman (1874-1954) was the first woman sculptor to be elected a full member of the National Academy of Design in 1919. Her allegorical figure works were commissioned as monuments and memorials, adornment for public buildings, and attractions at art expositions in early 20th-century America.
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Early life and education
The daughter of Edwin Henry and Clara Delitia (Adnam) Longman, she was born on a farm near Winchester, Ohio. At the age of fourteen, she earned a living working in a Chicago dry-goods store. At the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition, which she visited when she was almost 19 years old, Longman was inspired to become a sculptor. She attended Olivet College in Michigan for one year but returned to Chicago to study anatomy, drawing, and sculptor. Working under Lorado Taft at the Art Institute of Chicago, she earned her diploma for the four-year course of study in only two years. In 1901, Longman moved to New York, where she studied with Hermon Atkins MacNeil and Daniel Chester French. Her debut in large-scale public sculpture came at the St. Louis Exposition in 1904, where her male figure, Victory, was deemed so excellent in invention and technique that it was given a place of honor on the top of Festival Hall.
Career
Longman's 1915 "Genius of Electricity," a gilded male nude, was commissioned by AT&T Corporation for the top of their corporate headquarters in downtown Manhattan. The figure was reproduced on Bell Telephone directories across the country from 1938 until the 1960s. Around 1920, Longman assisted Daniel Chester French and Henry Bacon by creating some of the sculptural decorations for the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. In 1923, she won the Watrous Gold Medal for best sculpture. In 1918, she was hired by Nathaniel Horton Batchelder, the Headmaster of the Loomis Chaffee School, to sculpt a memorial to his late wife. Two years later she married Batchelder, moving to Connecticut at the height of her career. During the next 30 years, Longman completed dozens of commissions, both architectural and independent works, throughout the United States.. After her husband's retirement, Evelyn moved her studio to Cape Cod, where she died in 1954, one of the most respected and honored sculptors in American history.
Major works
- Victory (1904), commissioned for the Louisiana Purchase Exposition in Saint Louis.
- Great Bronze Memorial (1909) chapel doors at the United States Naval Academy, Annapolis.
Longman in front of chapel doors - Horsford doors (1910), the front entrance of Clapp Library at Wellesley College.
- Wreaths, eagles and inscriptions (1914) on the inner walls of the Lincoln Memorial.
- Genius of Telegraphy (1915), later known as Electricity and The Spirit of Communication, commissioned for the top of the AT&T skyscraper in New York City, later relocated to Bedminster, NJ.
- Senator Allison Monument (1916) Des Moines, Iowa.
- Fountain of Ceres (1915) in the Court of the Four Seasons at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition, San Francisco.
- L'Amour (1915) in the Palace of Fine Arts at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition San Francisco.
- Aenigma.
- Spirit of Victory (1926), Spanish-American War Memorial in Bushnell Park, Hartford, Connecticut.
- Victory of Mercy (1947).
- Edison (1952), 12.5 foot bronze portrait bust of Thomas Alva Edison in Washington D.C. at the Naval Research Laboratory.
Other works
In 1920, Longman carved the marble fountain in the lobby of the Heckscher Museum of Art. The young grandchildren of August Heckscher posed for the three small figures that serve as its focal point. An inscription around the rim reads, "Forever wilt thou love and they be fair." An example of her work "The Craftsman" also known as "Industry" completed in 1931 can be seen outside the main entrance of A. I. Prince Technical High School in Hartford, CT (formerly known as Hartford Trade School). The statue was placed there in 1960 in honor of the industrial pioneers of Hartford, CT. Sitting on a 16,000 pound granite foundation, the approximately 1,950 pound bronze sculpture remains an inspiration to students today.
References
- Cooper, Thaddeus O. (January 13, 2004). Tour of DC. Retrieved February 9, 2005.
- Ancestry.com's Biographical Cyclopedia of U.S. Women - database online (1997). Retrieved February 9, 2005.
- Samu, Margaret. “Evelyn Beatrice Longman: Establishing a Career in Public Sculpture.” Woman’s Art Journal 25.2 (Fall 2004/Winter 2005). 8-15.
- Sandstead, Lee (2004). Evelyn Beatrice Longman.org. Retrieved February 9, 2005.
- The Mercy Gallery. Retrieved February 10, 2005.
- Smithsonian American Art Museum, Inventories of American Painting and Sculpture [1] Retrieved February 20, 2007.
