Evelyn Beatrice Longman

Evelyn Beatrice Longman (1874-1954) was the first woman sculptor to be elected a full member of the National Academy of Design. Her allegorical figure works were commissioned as monuments and memorials, adornment for public buildings, and attractions at art expositions in early 19th-century America.

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. Longman attended Olivet College in Michigan for one year but returned to Chicago to study anatomy and drawing. Studying at night while attending the Chicago Art Institute, she assisted Lorado Taft as one of his "white rabbits" working on sculptures for the 1893 World's Exposition. Amazingly, by the end of her first year, she began to teach those same subjects.

Later, she then moved to New York where she studied with Hermon MacNeil and Daniel Chester French. As French's 19-year-old apprentice, Longman assisted Ernest Bairstow carving some of the features of the Lincoln Memorial.

Her sculptural debut came at the St. Louis Exposition 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

In 1918, she was hired by Nathaniel Horton Batchelder, the Headmaster of the Loomis Institute, 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 detached, exhibiting a genius of high order and a command of technique.

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.

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."

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.

Sandstead, Lee (2004). Evelyn Beatrice Longman.org. Retrieved February 9, 2005.

The Mercy Gallery. Retrieved February 10, 2005.

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