Robert Longhurst is an American sculptor who was born in Schenectady, New York, in 1949. At an early age he was fascinated by his father's small figurative woodcarvings. Longhurst received a Bachelor of Architecture from Kent State University in 1975. He began his artistic career in 1976 in Cincinnati, Ohio. His first commissioned works were three figurative sculptures in black walnut for Cincinnati businessman Joe David who owned Midwest Woodworking company. In 1978 Longhurst completed a life size figure in pine of an Adirondack hermit, Noah John Rondeau for the Adirondack Museum in Blue Mountain Lake, New York. Although Longhurst's career began with figurative works, it soon evolved into non-representational abstraction in exotic woods, marble and granite that draws on his background in Architecture. Many of his pieces are defined as being at the intersection of where the fields of art and math overlap, and they have been discussed by mathematicians such as Nathaniel Friedman, Reuben Hersh, and Ivars Peterson. Some of his sculptures portray minimal surfaces, which were named after German geometer Alfred Enneper. Nathaniel Friedman writes, "The surfaces [of Longhurst's sculptures] generally have appealing sections with negative curvature (saddle surfaces). This is a natural intuitive result of Longhurst's feeling for satisfying shape rather than a mathematically deduced result." Longhurst participated in the International Snow Sculpture Championships in Breckenridge, Colorado, in 2000 and 2001, by joining a snow sculpting team from Minnesota. Two of his sculptures representing minimal surfaces were enlarged and carved from blocks of snow measuring 12' high x 10' wide x 10' deep. In the 2000 championships, the team received second place, Artists' Choice Award, and People's Choice Award. Robert Longhurst lives in Chestertown, New York.
Selected collections
Adirondack Museum - Blue Mountain Lake, New York American Financial Corporation - Cincinnati, Ohio Amoco Corporation - Chicago, Illinois ANA (All Nippon Airways) Hotel - Tokyo, Japan AT&T - Chicago, Illinois Bank of Tokyo - New York, New York Bastion Industries - New York, New York BMC Software - Houston, Texas Bohlke Veneer Corporation - Fairfield, Ohio Brown-Forman Corporation - Louisville, Kentucky Burlington Northern Railroad - Fort Worth, Texas Champlin Oil Corporation - Fort Worth, Texas Chester B. Stem Incorporated - New Albany, Indiana Cornerstone Holdings Corporation - Aspen, Colorado Crown Associates Realty Incorporated - Beverly Hills, California Dana–Farber Cancer Institute – Boston, Massachusetts Danis Industries - Dayton, Ohio Duke University - Durham, North Carolina Empire Capital Corporation - Southport, Connecticut Ensign-Bickford Industries - Simsbury, Connecticut Fuqua Industries - Atlanta, Georgia Ideal Textile Company - Los Angeles, California International Woodworking Fair - Norcross, Georgia Gary Kaplan & Associates - Los Angeles, California Kimball International - Jasper, Indiana Louisville Courier Journal & Times - Louisville, Kentucky Midwest Woodworking Company - Cincinnati, Ohio Museum of Arts and Design - New York, New York National City Bank - Marion, Ohio National Reinsurance Corporation - Stamford, Connecticut Northern Natural Gas Company - Omaha, Nebraska Norton Simon Collection - New York, New York Prime Holding Company - Austin, Texas Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines - Oslo, Norway Seamless Technologies Incorporated - Morristown, New Jersey Seemac Incorporated - Carmel, Indiana Seven Bridges Foundation - Greenwich, CT Shipman Goodwin - Hartford, Connecticut Smithsonian American Art Museum - Washington, D.C. Southwest Psychiatric Associates - Torrance, California Sperry Corporation - New York, New York Takasago International Corporation - Rockleigh, New Jersey Corning Tropel Corp. - Fairport, New York Valley National Bank - McAllen, Texas University of Michigan - Ann Arbor, Michigan Victor Wire & Cable - Los Angeles, California Wigand Corporation - Dallas, Texas
References
External links Robert Longhurst’s website The website of Dr. Carlo H. Sequin, a professor of computer science at UC Berkeley Hyperseeing (The Journal of the International Society of the Arts, Mathematics, and Architecture), November 2006 Hyperseeing (The Journal of the International Society of the Arts, Mathematics, and Architecture), July 2007 Longhurst's Surface, a part of Minimal Surface Archive created by Dr. Matthias Weber, a professor of Mathematics at Indiana University Cline Fine Art Gallery