Mary Lightfoot Tarleton Knollenberg (June 9, 1904 – December 21, 1992) was an American sculptor. Born in

Great Neck Great Neck is a region contained within Nassau County, New York, on Long Island, which covers a peninsula on the North Shore and includes nine incorporated villages, among them Great Neck, Great Neck Estates, Great Neck Plaza, Kings Poin ...

Long Island Long Island is a densely populated continental island in southeastern New York (state), New York state, extending into the Atlantic Ocean. It constitutes a significant share of the New York metropolitan area in both population and land are ...

, Knollenberg was a student of

Mahonri Young Mahonri Mackintosh Young (August 9, 1877 – November 2, 1957) was an American social realism, social-realist Sculpture, sculptor and artist. During his lengthy career, he created more than 320 sculptures, 590 oil paintings, 5,500 watercolors, ...

and

Heinz Warneke Heinrich Johann Dietrich "Heinz" Warneke (June 30, 1895 – 1983) was a German-born American sculptor, best remembered as an animalier, or sculptor of animals. His role in the direct carving movement "assured him a place in the annals of 20th-cen ...

, and received a

Guggenheim Fellowship Guggenheim Fellowships are Grant (money), grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, endowed by the late Simon Guggenheim, Simon and Olga Hirsh Guggenheim. These awards are bestowed upon indiv ...

1933 Events January * January 11 – Australian aviator Sir Charles Kingsford Smith makes the first commercial flight between Australia and New Zealand. * January 17 – The United States Congress votes in favour of Philippines independen ...

. She later married historian

Bernard Knollenberg Bernard (''Bernhard'') is a French and West Germanic masculine given name. It has West Germanic origin and is also a surname. The name is attested from at least the 9th century. West Germanic ''Bernhard'' is composed from the two elements ''bern ...

, and was stepmother to his son Walter. During her career she was a member of the

National Association of Women Painters and Sculptors The National Association of Women Artists, Inc. (NAWA) is a United States organization, founded in 1889 to gain recognition for professional women fine artists in an era when that field was strongly male-oriented. It sponsors exhibitions, awards ...

, the

Sculptors Guild Sculptors Guild, a society of sculptors who banded together to promote public interest in contemporary sculpture, was founded in 1937. Signatories to the original corporation papers (Sculptors Guild, Inc.) were Sonia Gordon Brown, Berta Margouli ...

, and the American Art Congress. Later in life Knollenberg counted among her friends

Walker Evans Walker Evans (November 3, 1903 – April 10, 1975) was an American photographer and photojournalist best known for his work for the Resettlement Administration and the Farm Security Administration (FSA) documenting the effects of the Great ...

. She died in her sleep at her home in

Chester Chester is a cathedral city in Cheshire, England, on the River Dee, Wales, River Dee, close to the England–Wales border. With a built-up area population of 92,760 in 2021, it is the most populous settlement in the borough of Cheshire West an ...

Connecticut Connecticut ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It borders Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, New York (state), New York to the west, and Long Island Sound to the south. ...

. Her work was the subject of a 2014 retrospective at the

Florence Griswold Museum The Florence Griswold Museum is an art museum at 96 Lyme Street in Old Lyme, Connecticut centered on the home of Florence Griswold (1850–1937), which was the center of the Old Lyme Art Colony, a main nexus of American Impressionism. The museu ...

. Her papers and journals, along with diaries of her artist-writer mother, Mary Livingston Tarleton née Plympton, are in the Sallie Bingham Center for Women's History and Culture at Duke University.

References

1904 births 1992 deaths 20th-century American sculptors People from Great Neck, New York People from Chester, Connecticut Sculptors from New York (state) Sculptors from Connecticut 20th-century American women sculptors {{US-sculptor-stub