Elsa Longhauser is the founding executive director of the

Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles The Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (ICA LA), formerly known as the Santa Monica Museum of Art (SMMoA), is a contemporary art museum in Los Angeles, CA. As an independent and non-collecting art museum (or kunsthalle), it exhibits the w ...

(ICA LA), formerly the

Santa Monica Museum of Art The Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (ICA LA), formerly known as the Santa Monica Museum of Art (SMMoA), is a contemporary art museum in Los Angeles, CA. As an independent and non-collecting art museum (or kunsthalle), it exhibits the ...

(SMMoA), where Longhauser served as director from 2000 until the museum ended operations in

Bergamot Station Bergamot Station Arts Center is a Santa Monica facility housing many different private art galleries and appears in most tourist guides as a primary cultural destination. Opened September 17, 1994 as Bergamot Station the campus-like complex is ...

in 2015. From 1983 until 2000, Longhauser served as director of the gallery at the

Moore College of Art and Design Moore College of Art & Design is a Private college, private art school in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Its undergraduate programs are available only for female students, but its other educational programs, including graduate programs, are co-ed ...

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...

, Pennsylvania.

Early life and education

Longhauser is from

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...

. She attended

Antioch College Antioch College is a private liberal arts college in Yellow Springs, Ohio. Founded in 1850 by the Christian Connection, the college began operating in 1852 as a non-sectarian institution; politician and education reformer Horace Mann was its f ...

as a young woman. She married and had three children before completing her bachelor's degree in art history in 1971, from the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest-regarded universitie ...

.Suzanne Muchnic
"Champion of the Overlooked: The Santa Monica Museum's New Director Hopes to Make Room for Artists Who Haven't Yet Shown Up on the Radar"
''Los Angeles Times'' (June 18, 2000): 8.

Career

Longhauser was director of several galleries in Philadelphia early in her career. She organized an "important show" of

outsider art Outsider art is art made by self-taught or supposedly naïve artists with typically little or no contact with the conventions of the art worlds. In many cases, their work is discovered only after their deaths. Often, outsider art illustrates e ...

at the

Philadelphia College of Art Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Since 1 ...

in 1981. In 1993, Longhauser continued her interest in the genre when she organized a touring show of

Terry Fox Terrance Stanley Fox (July 28, 1958 June 28, 1981) was a Canadian athlete, humanitarian, and cancer research activist. In 1980, with one leg having been amputated due to cancer, he embarked on an east-to-west cross-Canada run to raise money ...

's work. In 1998, she was guest co-curator with

Harald Szeemann '' Harald Szeemann (11 June 1933 – 18 February 2005) was a Swiss curator, artist, and art historian. Having curated more than 200 exhibitions, many of which have been characterized as groundbreaking, Szeemann is said to have helped redefine the r ...

at the

Museum of American Folk Art The American Folk Art Museum is an art museum in the Upper West Side of Manhattan, at 2, Lincoln Square, Columbus Avenue at 66th Street. It is the premier institution devoted to the aesthetic appreciation of folk art and creative expressions of ...

for a "major traveling show" of works by self-taught American artists. Elsa Longhauser became gallery director at Moore College of Art and Design in 1983; during her tenure there, she was called an "unsung hero of the local cultural scene". In 2000, Longhauser left Philadelphia and became director of the Santa Monica Museum of Art. Founded in 1984 as the Santa Monica Museum of Art (SMMoA) and reestablished in 2017 with a new identity and home in Downtown Los Angeles, ICA LA builds upon a distinguished history of bold curatorial vision and innovative programming to illuminate the important untold stories and emerging voices in contemporary art and culture. The museum’s 12,700 square-foot renovated industrial building—designed by wHY Architecture under the leadership of Kulapat Yantrasast—features ample space for exhibitions, public programs, retail pop-ups, integrated offices, and special projects.

Personal life

Longhauser married Norman B. Weiner, a doctor, as her first husband; he died in 1977."Obituary: Norman Weiner"
''Pocono Record'' (December 5, 1977): 10. via

Newspapers.com Ancestry.com LLC is an American genealogy company based in Lehi, Utah. The largest for-profit genealogy company in the world, it operates a network of genealogical, historical records, and related genetic genealogy websites. In November 2018, ...

She remarried in 1983, to William Longhauser, a graphic artist and college professor.

Early life and education

Career

Personal life

References

Further reading