Birth Dates of Notable Kentuckians: May 7, 1906 - Frank Weathers Long

Image from bereaonline.com


From The Kentucky Encyclopedia -
Frank Weathers Long, artist and craftsman, was born in Knoxville, Tennessee, on May 7, 1906, to Clifton J. and Leora May (Weathers) Long. After graduating from high school in 1925, Long entered the Art Institute of Chicago. In 1927 he enrolled in advanced figure painting and composition classes at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art in Philadelphia, and in 1928- 29 he studied at the Acadmie Julien in Paris. He then established a studio in Chicago. A portfolio of his wood engravings, Heracles, the Twelve Labors, was published in 1932.

On a visit to Lexington, Kentucky, in the summer of 1934, Long was commissioned to paint two murals in the library building at the University of Kentucky , and later that year he opened a studio in Berea, Kentucky. In an open competition sponsored by the Treasury Department Art Projects during the Depression, Long was selected to design ten murals in Louisville's new Federal Building and Post Office. In 1939 he completed Rural Free Delivery, a mural in the post office in Morehead, Kentucky, and Old Time Commencement at Berea College in the post office in Berea.

In August 1942 Long joined the army. In the fall of 1946, he enrolled in the crafts department of New Mexico's State Teachers College (now New Mexico State University). After a year, Long returned to Kentucky, where he built a house and workshop near Berea and established a handmade-jewelry business with outlets in Berea, Louisville , and Lexington. From 1951 to 1957 Long directed a program for the development of native crafts in Alaska, sponsored by the Indian Arts and Crafts Board. In 1958 he returned to Kentucky and reopened his jewelry business.

In 1962 Long moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico, where he worked at the Southwest headquarters of the Indian Arts and Crafts Board until 1969, when he became self-employed as a jeweler and sculptor. In 1977 Long's book The Creative Lapidary was published. He closed his jewelry shop at the end of 1987 to devote his time to painting and writing. Long, who married Laura May Whitis in 1942, lives in Albuquerque.


According to Library Hopepage at Berea College https://libraryguides.berea.edu/franklong):
Long died in Diamondhead, Mississippi in 1999
See

Sue B. Beckham, "A Kentucky Artist and a Federal Program: Frank Long and the Treasurer Section of Fine Arts," Kentucky Review (Spring 1988): 35-36.

Selected Source in UK Libraries:

Bruce, Edward, Forbes. Watson, and United States. Department of the Treasury. Procurement Division. Section of Painting Sculpture. Art in Federal Buildings, an Illustrated Record of the Treasury Department's New Program in Painting and Sculpture. (1936). Print.
N6512 .A7, Fine Arts Library - Closed Stacks - Oversize

Additional Sources:

Williams American Art & Antiques
http://www.williamsamericanart.com/custpage.cfm/frm/122387/sec_id/122387

Kentucky Artisan Center at Berea
http://www.kentuckyartisancenter.ky.gov/gs_exhibits_2015_frank_long.aspx