Laura Swing Kemeys

She was the last of fourteen children that Simon Sparks Swing had fathered, also having nine half-sibling that were each between 21 and 30 years her elder.

Simon Sparks Swing died at age 58, shortly after she was conceived and prior to her birth.

[2] Coming to share an appreciation for artistic realism and a fascination wild animals with her husband, she would join him annually on hunting expeditions in the Western United States where they would observe, dissect, and draw animals that would later be put to use as models for sculptures.

[1] In 1892, she and her husband moved to Chicago, after receiving a large commission to create sculptures to decorate the grounds of the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition.

[1] By the 1890s, Kemeys began to receive greater recognition as an artist independent of her husband's, having her works exhibited at the Art Institute of Chicago.

[1] While in Washington, D.C. Kemeys had works exhibited at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts and received a commission for nine sculptures at the new Small Mammal House of the United States National Zoo.

[1] Kemeys died November 5, 1934[1] in Washington, D.C.[4] She was buried at Arlington National Cemetery, alongside her husband who was a veteran of the American Civil War.