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 14, 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 sculpture. 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 1904 St. Louis World's Fair, 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 the Fair's centerpiece building, Festival Hall. Recently, a smaller Bronze version, a statuette dated 1903, was located and in 2007 was sold at auction for $7,800—a small price for a piece representing the hallmark of a celebrated sculptor.
Read more about this topic: Evelyn Beatrice Longman
Famous quotes containing the words early, life and/or education:
“Our bad neighbor makes us early stirrers,
Which is both healthful and good husbandry.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“I cannot live with You—
It would be Life—
And Life is over there—
Behind the Shelf”
—Emily Dickinson (1830–1886)
“Whether in the field of health, education or welfare, I have put my emphasis on preventive rather than curative programs and tried to influence our elaborate, costly and ill- co-ordinated welfare organizations in that direction. Unfortunately the momentum of social work is still directed toward compensating the victims of our society for its injustices rather than eliminating those injustices.”
—Agnes E. Meyer (1887–1970)