Mary King Longfellow

Mary King Longfellow at her easel

Longfellow Family Photograph Collection (3007.3/2.3-#26)

Quick Facts

Significance:

Artist

Place of Birth:

Westbrook, Maine

Date of Birth:

6 October 1852

Place of Death:

Portland, Maine

Date of Death:

17 September 1945

Place of Burial:

Portland, Maine

Cemetery Name:

Evergreen Cemetery

Mary King Longfellow was the first of five children born to Elizabeth Clapp Porter Longfellow and Alexander Wadsworth Longfellow, a brother of the poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, on 6 October 1852 at the family’s farm Highfield in Westbrook, Maine. Named after her mother’s sister, Mary King Porter, she was known to family and friends as “Mamie.” She enjoyed drawing and took up watercolor at an early age.

Her family encouraged her artwork and Longfellow pursued lessons. She studied at the Museum of Fine Arts School of Drawing and Painting in 1878, and in 1884 to 1889 took watercolor lessons with Ross Sterling Turner, a Boston painter of the American Impressionist movement. Likely influenced by her instructor, Longfellow’s artwork reflected the principles of two fashionable art movements of the late nineteenth-century, Impressionism and Realism. As a result, she focused on watercolor as a medium and often painted in plein air. Moreover, her primary subjects, the landscape and seascape of coastal Maine were captured moments on paper depicting the world around her in a realistic and seemingly objective manner. Longfellow was active in the art community, both in Boston and Portland (the Portland Sketch Club), and her artwork was exhibited at the Art Institute of Chicago, Boston Art Club, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Pennsylvania Academy, and the Portland Society of Art. Although she did not paint for a living, her occupation in the Portland City directory after 1903 is listed as “Artist.” In a 1981 exhibit of Women Pioneers in Maine Art, the Joan Whitney Payson Gallery declared Longfellow “stands as Portland’s best known [nineteenth-century] female painter.”

In addition to her career as an artist, Longfellow had a variety of interests, such as photography, sailing, shooting, sewing, writing and collecting poetry, travel and theatre, throughout her life. Longfellow photographed social gatherings, sailing excursions, and staged portraits, and often printed her own film.

Among Longfellow’s many interests, traveling was a highlight. She made several extended trips to Europe as well as trips to Mexico and the southeastern United States. Each excursion is documented through diary entries, sketches and watercolors. On her first journey to Europe in 1876, Longfellow was accompanied by Ernest Wadsworth Longfellow and his wife Harriet Spelman Longfellow, both artists.

Never married, Longfellow remained close to her family and friends. She lived in the family home in Portland at 37 South Street until 1908 when she acquired her first home at 116 State Street. She took up residence on 8 June 1908 and lived there until her death in 1945.

The Mary King Longfellow Papers are held in the archives of Longfellow House-Washington's Headquarters NHs.