Evelyn Beatrice Longman

Evelyn Beatrice Longman was a sculptor in the U.S. Her allegorical figure works were commissioned as monuments and memorials, adornment for public buildings, and attractions at art expositions in early 20th-century America. She was the first woman sculptor to be elected a full member of the National Academy of Design in 1919.

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 the sculptural decorations for the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. In 1923, she won the Watrous Gold Medal for best sculpture.

She is also often noted for sculpting the hands on the Lincoln Memorial, although this is not confirmed to be true. She assisted with many aspects of the Lincoln Memorial, but French himself modeled the hands.

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. She was an active member of the Loomis Chaffee School, donating countless items that are currently held still at the school, as well as in the surrounding town. Her work was also part of the sculpture event in the art competition at the 1928 Summer Olympics.

After her husband's retirement, Evelyn moved her studio to Cape Cod, where in 1954 she died.

After her death, her husband is rumored to have scattered her ashes at Chesterwood, the home and studio of her former employer and mentor, Daniel Chester French.

Text courtesy of Wikipedia, 2023