Anna Coleman Ladd (Philadelphia, 1878 - 1939, Boston)
Letter to Isabella Stewart Gardner from Arden, Beverly Farms, Massachusetts, 8 July 1920
Ink on paper
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Commentary
This letter is from Isabella's friend, the sculptor Anna Coleman Ladd (1878-1939). In this letter from the summer of 1920, Ladd discusses her time spent in France sculpting facial prosthetics for seriously wounded World War I veterans. She notes that pausing her career to do this work cost her commissions; once back in the United States, she did not have much work. However, she writes to Isabella that creating these prosthetics was "better work than ever in my life before." She describes her work with the wounded soldiers as one small way to remedy the evils of war and restore "youth, which has been nearly swept away in the late hellish upheaval."