Sarah Ashley Longshore was born in Montgomery, Alabama to Spencer Longshore III, the president and CEO of Time and Space Inc., an advertising sales company.[7] She was exposed to the arts as a child and took lessons in tap dancing, ballet, theatre, piano, jazz, and voice.[4][13] Following her graduation from Brenau Academy, an all-girl boarding school located in Gainesville, Georgia, Longshore obtained a Bachelor of Arts in English literature from the University of Montana.[14][7] While a student at the University of Montana, Longshore took a semester off to paint.[15] Longshore is a self-taught artist,[16] and spent much of her early career reproducing Picasso paintings.[4] She put together a portfolio and began showing her work to galleries around Missoula, Montana. Her first art show was at a small-town gallery.[15]
In 2011, Longshore was commissioned by Chloé to create a painting that depicted the fashion house's history.[3]
In September 2013, Longshore held a pop-up art exhibition entitled “Fashionably Late” at the Pop-Up Art Gallery in New York City.[17][18]
Longshore was featured on Vogue.com in Spring 2014, where she spoke about the role of Instagram as an emerging platform for art sales.[19][20] In 2015, Longshore sold over $1 million worth of art.[21][22]CUE Magazine recognized Longshore as a New Orleans Style Maker in 2016.[23] In August 2016, Longshore's office and studio was featured on Elle Decor.[24] Longshore partnered with fashion brand Cle de Peau and designed a line of home goods in 2016.[16] In February 2017, she released her first book You Don't Look Fat, You Look Crazy: An Unapologetic Guide to Being Ambitchous,[25] as "tongue-in-cheek guide to living an 'ambitchous' life".[26][27] In November 2018, she created artwork for to support the launch of Gucci’s “Do It Yourself” initiative.[28]
In 2019, Longshore partnered with Maybelline to create lipstick packaging based on her artwork.[29] She also partnered with Eric Buterbaugh for her first LA show, which took place at his personal gallery.[30]
In 2021, The Peninsula Beverly Hills celebrated its 30th anniversary with Longshore acting as an Artist-In-Residence, featuring 20+ new works created by Longshore during her residency around the hotel.[32] Longshore and Judith Leiber launched their second collection collaboration in November 2020.[33]
In 2022, YoungArts launched The Ashley Longshore Excellence in the Arts Award, an annual unrestricted $25,000 grant to support visual arts, photography, and musical theatre artists.[34]
In 2023, Longshore collaborated with Porsche USA to create artwork for ads to be used as murals in cities throughout the U.S.[35][36]
In September 2023, Longshore opened a gallery in SoHo, NYC.[6]
Art New Orleans featured a Longshore painting on the cover of its Spring 2013 issue and Vie Magazine featured her art on the cover of its May 2013 issue.[7][37]
In 2014, Longshore announced a collaboration with friend and long-time client Blake Lively for Lively's lifestyle e-commerce site Preserve.[38] Longshore and Lively began working together at Longshore's studio shortly before Lively's site launched.[39] Later that year, she created a holiday exhibit for Kirna Zabete[40] featuring “Jingle My Bells.”[41] Kirna Zabete has 20 pieces of Longshore's work exhibited.[42] In 2015, Longshore was featured by Forbes on a list of 21 contemporary artists.[5] That same year, Longshore's work was also featured at the Cornell Museum in an exhibit titled “Bling: Art That Shines.” The collection included Longshore's large-scale portraits highlighting celebrity excess. Her pieces Audrey in Slipper Orchid Headdress and Subtleties Are Not Her Specialty were among the featured works in the exhibit.[43] In 2015, Longshore launched Artgasm, a direct-to-collector subscription program inspired by TuneCore.[21][44]
In fall 2015, Longshore debuted a collection of satirical fashion portraits during New York Fashion Week.[45][46] She became the first artist to secure a collaboration with the Bryant Park Hotel with a Longshore-designed suite featuring the collection of seven bold portraits of iconic names in fashion.[47][48]
In January 2018, Longshore became the first solo female artist to exhibit at the Bergdorf Goodman Building.[49][50] As part of the exhibit, Longshore's work was placed in six different Bergdorf Goodman window displays on Fifth Avenue.[51][52]
In March 2020, as part of Women's History Month, Sprinkles Cupcakes featured Longshore's artwork on its limited edition White Chocolate Raspberry cupcake.[55]
In October 2021, Longshore created an installation for the Netflix premiere of Gwyneth Paltrow’s Sex, Love & goop.[56] That same month, she debuted her new furniture collection with Ken Fulk at the Prodigal Fun exhibition, which also featured approximately 70 large-scale pop art paintings by Longshore.[57]
Longshore has also released two collections of NFTs. The first,[58] based on her book of portraits of women, ROAR, was released in January 2022. The second,[59] IT'S A MAN'S WORLD, focused on portraits of real and fictional men, was released in June 2022.