(b Winchester, OH, Nov 21, 1874; d Osterville, MA, March 10, 1954).
American sculptor. Longman was the first American woman of her generation to establish a career in large-scale public sculpture and the first woman sculptor to become a full member of the National Academy of Design (1919). Longman studied at the Art Institute of Chicago as a teenager, then began modeling clay in 1896 while at Olivet College in Michigan. In 1898 she enrolled full-time at the Art Institute of Chicago. Training with Lorado Taft, she completed the four-year program in two years. After moving to New York City she became a studio assistant to Daniel Chester French in 1901. At his encouragement she opened her own studio, where she worked in her free time. After she left French’s studio in 1906, they remained close friends and colleagues.
Longman’s first public commission was Victory (gilded staff, 1903), created for the 1904 St Louis World’s Fair. This 7.6-m tall gilded figure of a lithe male athlete crowned the fair’s central building, while the plaster model for the piece won a silver medal for sculpture (bronze casts ...