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Most people typing “Talita Long” into a search bar already know one thing about her: she is Nia Long’s mother. What they do not know is that the story starts and ends far beyond that single fact. Talita Gillman Long is a printmaker, painter, singer-songwriter, and art educator whose career spans more than five decades. She raised her daughter alone, earned graduate degrees at a time when very few Black women did, and quietly built a body of work that now lives in major galleries. This is her full story.
Quick facts about Talita Long
| Field | Details |
| Full name | Talita Gillman Long |
| Date of birth | December 9, 1948 |
| Age (2026) | 77 years |
| Birthplace | Brooklyn, New York, USA |
| Nationality | American |
| Ethnicity | Afro-Caribbean (Trinidadian, Grenadian, Bajan) |
| Parents | Clyde Vernon Gillman, Pearl Miriam Gillman |
| Sibling | Brenda (sister) |
| Ex-husband | Doughtry “Doc” Long |
| Daughter | Nia Long |
| Grandchildren | Massai Zhivago Dorsey II, Kez Sunday Udoka |
| Profession | Visual artist, printmaker, educator, singer-songwriter |
| Education | Cooper Union; University of Iowa (MA, MFA in Printmaking) |
| Residence | South Los Angeles, California |
| Net worth | Estimated $1M to $2M |
Early life, family roots, and Brooklyn upbringing
Talita Long was born on December 9, 1948, in Brooklyn, New York. She grew up at 1139 Park Place in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood, in a brownstone her parents shared with the rhythms of Caribbean life. Her father, Clyde Gillman, and her mother, Pearl Gittens, were Trinidadian immigrants who brought their culture with them and kept it alive inside that Brooklyn home.
She grew up alongside her sister Brenda, and the household was shaped by Afro-Caribbean values, music, food, and a strong sense of where the family came from. That foundation mattered. It did not just shape who she was as a child. It shaped everything she would later create as an artist.
Growing up Black in 1950s Brooklyn, in a neighborhood full of immigrant families working to build something real, gave Talita a worldview that is visible even now in her prints and canvases. Heritage was not something she had to go looking for. It was already in the house.
Education: degrees, mentors, and a historic achievement
Talita Long did not take the easy path. She studied at Cooper Union in New York City, one of the most selective art schools in the country, before going on to the University of Iowa for advanced work. There, she earned both a Master of Arts and a Master of Fine Arts in printmaking.
By some accounts, she was the first African American woman to reach that level of achievement in printmaking at Iowa. Whether or not every detail of that distinction is confirmed, what is undeniable is that she arrived in an environment where women like her were rarely seen, and she stayed, learned, and excelled.
At Iowa, she trained under Maurice Lasansky, one of the most respected figures in American printmaking. She also developed her technique at the Robert Blackburn Printmaking Workshop, an institution with its own long history of supporting Black artists. These were not casual stops in her education. They were formative years that gave her the technical depth and artistic confidence she would carry for the rest of her career.
Career as a visual artist and printmaker
Talita Long began her professional art career around 1970. For more than fifty years since, she has worked as a printmaker and painter whose subjects include Black identity, Caribbean heritage, nature, and the emotional terrain of lived experience.
Her work is serious and specific. Pieces like the Trinidad Carnival Series pull directly from her Afro-Caribbean roots, translating cultural memory into visual language. Other works, like “Black Tears Still Upon Us,” carry a heavier emotional weight, using image-making to sit inside grief and history rather than look away from it.
Major exhibitions have brought her work to wider audiences:
- “Pathways” at the African American Museum of Art
- “Songs On Canvas” at Matter Studio Gallery in 2024
- Showings at Band of Vices and Bermudez Projects in Los Angeles
These are not vanity shows. They are galleries with genuine reputations, and her presence in them reflects how seriously the art world takes her work.
One detail that surfaced at the 2026 Met Gala says more than any exhibition list could. When Nia Long walked the carpet in a custom LaQuan Smith gown, she had a secret tucked inside the bow: a reproduction of her mother’s debut pen-and-ink piece, “The Mother and Child,” which Talita had created at age 18 and finished just before discovering she was pregnant. The painting traveled inside a designer gown to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the same institution Talita had brought young Nia to visit years before. That is the kind of full-circle moment that does not happen to people who made something ordinary.
Music: albums, collaborators, and a creative second voice
What surprises many people is that Talita Long is also a working musician. Her music blends soul, jazz, and contemporary sounds in a way that feels personal rather than commercial.
Her 2024 album “You Belong To Me” is her most accessible release to date. Songs like “Love You Girl” and “Beautiful On Me” are warm and direct, dealing with love and self-worth in language that feels genuinely felt. She has worked with producers including Preston Glass and Malvin Dino Vice, and earlier in her career she appeared on projects connected to jazz musician Freddie Hubbard and the group 4hero.
Her music is available on Spotify and Apple Music. It is not the loudest voice in any room, but it is hers, and it is consistent with everything else she has made: art that comes from a real place.
Teaching career and her years with the Los Angeles Unified School District
For a long stretch of her working life, Talita Long was not in galleries or studios. She was in classrooms. She worked as an art specialist with the Los Angeles Unified School District, bringing creative education to students in South Los Angeles who might not otherwise have had access to it.
That role was not a side job. It was a mission. Talita has cited the influence of Joseph Beuys, the German artist who believed deeply that art has the power to change society. She carried that belief into her teaching, working with students as a way of extending what she did in her studio into something that might touch more lives.
She also worked in higher education contexts, sharing printmaking knowledge with students at more advanced levels. Across all of it, she treated teaching the same way she treated making art: with full seriousness and real commitment.
Marriage to Doughtry “Doc” Long, and life as a single mother
Talita met Doughtry Long, a poet and educator known for his involvement in the Black Arts Movement, and they married in the late 1960s. Doc Long was based in Trenton, New Jersey, where he taught at Trenton Central High School and wrote works including “Black Love Black Hope” and “Timbuktu Blues.” He also had another daughter, the comedian known as Sommore, making Sommore the paternal half-sister of Nia Long.
In 1970, Nia was born. Two years later, the marriage ended. What Talita did next says everything about who she is. She packed up and moved to Iowa City with her two-year-old daughter to finish her graduate degrees. She was a single mother in graduate school, studying printmaking at a major university, navigating all of it at the same time.
By 1977, she had moved to South Los Angeles. A planned remarriage did not happen, and she chose to stay and build her life there on her own terms. She worked long hours, made art, taught school, and raised Nia in a neighborhood she once joked looked like the setting for the film her daughter would eventually appear in.
Read more: Jenny Merwin: the woman behind the lavender rows and a quiet life after Hollywood
Her daughter: Nia Long
Nia’s full birth name is Nia Talita Long, named in part after her mother. She was born on October 30, 1970, and grew up following her mother from Brooklyn to Iowa City to Los Angeles. Talita enrolled her in ballet, gymnastics, and acting classes from an early age, and made sure she attended schools with strong educational environments, including St. Mary’s Academy in Inglewood and Westchester High School.
Nia’s acting career began to take shape in the late 1980s and took off with “Boyz n the Hood” in 1991. From there came “Friday,” “Love Jones,” “Soul Food,” and television work on “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air” and “NCIS: Los Angeles.” She has received multiple NAACP Image Awards and a Black Reel Award, and in 2026 she played Katherine Jackson in the Lionsgate biopic “Michael,” directed by Antoine Fuqua.
The connection between mother and daughter goes beyond biology. Nia has spoken about growing up visiting museums with her mother, learning to see art as something real and alive. That upbringing is visible in the choices Nia has made throughout her career.
Talita Long’s spiritual return to Trinidad
One detail few sources mention is the trip Talita made back to Trinidad as an adult, described in a Trinidad Express feature as a kind of spiritual uprooting. After more than sixty years on American soil, she felt a pull back toward the place her parents came from. She returned twice within a short period, describing the experience as a reconciliation of two selves: African-American and Afro-Caribbean. “I’ve lost 12 pounds in 18 days,” she told the paper, suggesting just how much the journey shook something loose in her.
That story matters because it connects directly to her art. The Trinidad Carnival Series did not come from a removed, academic interest in Caribbean culture. It came from someone who felt that culture as a living part of herself, even when she was far from it.
Final thoughts
Talita Long’s story is not about being someone’s mother, even though she is clearly a devoted and influential one. It is about a woman who built a real creative life across multiple disciplines, did it largely on her own terms, and never stopped. She made prints, she painted, she taught, she recorded music, she traveled back to her roots, and she raised a daughter who named herself partly after her.
The measure of Talita Long is not Nia Long’s career. It is the painting hidden inside a Met Gala gown. It is the graduate student in Iowa City with a two-year-old and a thesis to finish. It is the art teacher in South Los Angeles who believed creativity was worth giving to everyone. That is a full life. It deserves to be known on its own.
FAQ
Who is Talita Long?
Talita Long is an American visual artist, printmaker, educator, and singer-songwriter who has been active since the early 1970s. She is also the mother of actress Nia Long and is known for her work exploring Afro-Caribbean heritage, Black identity, and lived experience through printmaking and painting.
How old is Talita Long?
She was born on December 9, 1948, which makes her 77 years old as of 2026.
What did Talita Long achieve academically?
She studied at Cooper Union in New York and went on to earn both an MA and an MFA in printmaking from the University of Iowa. She trained under master printmaker Maurice Lasansky and is widely regarded as a pioneering figure in American printmaking, particularly as a Black woman working in the field during the 1970s.
Was Talita Long’s artwork at the 2026 Met Gala?
Yes. When Nia Long made her Met Gala debut in May 2026, designer LaQuan Smith hid a reproduction of Talita’s debut pen-and-ink piece, “The Mother and Child,” inside the bow of the gown. Talita had created that piece at 18, shortly before discovering she was pregnant with Nia.
Did Talita Long raise Nia Long as a single mother?
She did. After her marriage to Doughtry Long ended in 1972, she moved with two-year-old Nia to Iowa City to complete her graduate education, then relocated to South Los Angeles in 1977, where she raised her daughter while working as an art educator and building her own creative career.
What music has Talita Long released?
Her 2024 album “You Belong To Me” includes songs like “Love You Girl” and “Beautiful On Me.” She has collaborated with producers Preston Glass and Malvin Dino Vice and has earlier credits on projects connected to jazz and neo-soul artists. Her music is available on Spotify and Apple Music.
What is Talita Long’s net worth?
Her net worth is estimated at between one and two million dollars, based on income from art sales, music, and her teaching career with the Los Angeles Unified School District.
