Victory

This figure of a young male wearing a classical garment and holding aloft a laurel wreath is a replica of the plaster model for Longman's Victory, which was designed in 1903 for the St. Louis World's Fair of the following year. The sculpture was Longman’s first to receive major attention. Contemporary critics noted the unusual use of a male model to represent an allegory that was traditionally shown in the female form.

According to art writer Jonathan A. Rawson in an article in International Studio in 1912, upon receiving the commission to furnish a statue of Victory for the Varied Industries Building at the fair, Longman consciously “proclaimed herself an insurgent, and proceeded to make Victory according to her own ideas. Men, she reasoned, have occasionally had something to do with victories. Why should not at least one statue of a victory be a male figure?”