Anna Coleman Ladd
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Anna Coleman Watts Ladd (1878 – June 3, 1939) was an American sculptress in Manchester, MA who devoted her time throughout World War I to soldiers who were disfigured. In late 1917, in Paris, Ladd founded the American Red Cross "Studio for Portrait-Masks" to provide cosmetic masks to be worn by men who had been badly disfigured in World War I. Her services earned her the Légion d'Honneur Crois de Chevalier and the Serbian Order of Saint Sava.[1]
Soldiers would come to Ladd's studio to have a cast made of their face and their features sculpted onto clay or plasticine. This form was then used to constuct the prosthetic piece from extremely thin galvanized copper. The metal was painted to resemble the recipient's skin, and the prosthesis was donned with strings or eyeglasses for retention much like the prothetics created in Francis Derwent Wood's "Tin Noses Shop". [2]
The present day correlation to the work of Ladd is the field of anaplastology. Anaplastology is the art and science of restoring absent or malformed anatomy through artificial means. In the Smithsonian Magazine February 2007 article, "Rivaling Nature" - Erin Donaldson, an anaplastologist in Beverly, MA, was interviewed by Caroline Alexander for a present day perspective on the purpose and benefits of facial prosthetics for patients in civilian sectors as well as soldiers returning from the current conflict in Iraq. The public's treatment of soldiers with facial differences has changed little since Ladd's time.
[edit] Notes
[edit] References
- Anna Coleman Ladd papers, 1881-1950. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
- Alexander, Caroline (2007). "Faces of War". Smithsonian, February 2007, pp. 72-80.
