Ladd, Anna Coleman, 1878-1939

Portrait and architectural sculptor; Boston, Mass.

Born Anna Coleman Watts in Philiadelphia, Pa. Raised in Paris and lived and studied in Rome for twelve years. Founded the Studio for Portrait Masks in the American Red Cross in Paris during WWI, where she collaborated with surgeons to fit disfigured soldiers with sculpted faces.

From the description of Anna Coleman Ladd papers, ca. 1881-1950. (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 84401699

Born in 1878 in Philadelphia to John and Mary Watts, Anna Coleman Ladd (née Watts) was educated in private schools and Europe. She also studied in American under Charles Grafly.

She moved to Boston in 1905 and married Boston pediatrician Maynard Ladd. Working in her studio on Clarendon Street, Ladd became one of the city's most prolific sculptors, creating fountain pieces, portrait busts, memorials, and reliefs in addition to authoring two novels, Hieronymus Rides in 1912, and The Candid Adventurer in 1913.

Between 1907 and 1915 Ladd had solo exhibitions at the Gorham Gallery in New York, the Corcoran Gallery in Washington, D.C., and at the Pennsylvania Academy in Philadelphia. She was also invited to exhibit her bronzes at the Panama Pacific Exposition in San Francisco. In 1914 she executed a bronze statuette of Eleanora Duse for which the actress posed, and later completed portrait busts of Anna Pavlova and Ethel Barrimore.

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.

For many years, Ladd maintained a summer studio "Arden" at Beverly Farms in Manchester, Massachusetts. In 1923, she received an honorary degree of Master of Arts from Tufts College.

Anna Coleman Ladd died June 3, 1939 in Santa Barbara, California.

From the guide to the Anna Coleman Ladd papers, 1881-1950, (Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution)