How portrait painter Anna Ladd gave new faces to WWI veterans

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

It is sometimes joked that anaplastology - the science of how to make the face or body look acceptable with a prosthesis - was named after her, Anna Ladd. Of course not. But it still stands at the origins of anaplastology. Ladd is a legendary, as they said at the beginning of the twentieth century, "sculptress" who returned the possibility of a full human life and communication to dozens of soldiers disfigured by the First World War.

The First World War was perceived as a war of boundless brutality, which has nothing to compare with in the past. Yes, in the battles of the past, thousands of warriors were often killed and after them, they bravely destroyed prisoners, but before the First World War there was no gas that made you spit out your own lungs for several minutes until you died. And after the wars of the past, there were much fewer cripples on the streets and in hospitals: a cannonball tore off the head to death, and a bullet pierced tissue directly. Shrapnel from the new bombs could demolish half of the face, leaving a person alive.

Plastic surgery, and indeed surgery in general, even close at the beginning of the twentieth century did not have the capabilities that it had already at the end of it. Doctors went to a new level, making the patient able to breathe, speak, eat, drink - in general, somehow move the remnants of his face. But they were not able to carve out a new face with whom they could go to work or just show up in public places without a feeling of awkwardness and violent reaction of others.

And then two experimental sculptors got down to business, Francis Wood in London and Anna Ladd in Paris. As a matter of fact, Wood was the author of the idea, and Ladd was his follower, but in the end it was to her that veterans from almost all over Europe came, while Wood helped only the British. In addition, Ladd did not act alone - her partner was the surgeon Harold Gillies, who, in fact, first saved the face and the ability to own it as much as possible with his level of talent and available materials and tools. It was only after a series of operations performed by Gillis that Ladd got down to business.

The facial prosthesis was made of thin and light galvanized copper, which was then painted to match the skin color. It had to be made as similar to the previous face as possible, and the shape had to be calculated so that wearing the prosthesis was comfortable, so that it would fit in the right places and leave freedom in others. On many prostheses, the mouth was slightly open so that you could shove a cigarette or drink through a straw, and most importantly, so that there were no additional obstacles to speech (in most patients, it, of course, became very indistinct after being wounded). Dentures were fastened with the help of arms, often with the help of a soldered frame of glasses. To make it look similar, Ladd asked for old photographs; if someone close could tell how similar the artificial face is, it was also good.

During the "face reconstruction" photographic images were taken three times: before the work of the surgeon, after the work of the surgeon, after the manufacture of the prosthesis. To make prostheses, Ladd also took plaster casts of faces, which were kept separately. Patients of one of the first two facial prosthetists in the world wrote to her later thanking her - the thought that they would terrify even loved ones by their appearance led many to despair and thoughts of suicide before Ladd's work. So Ladd literally saved lives.

Born Watts, Anna was born in the USA, in the state of Philadelphia. She came to Paris to study the arts. She also studied in Rome. In 1905, Anna moved to Boston and married the physician Maynard Ladd, receiving his last name. In Boston, she continued her studies. Anna was not only a "sculptress", but also a writer. She penned two books: the historical novel "Hieronymus Rides" and the realistic story "The Sincere Adventurer". In addition to books, she composed two plays, one of them is an autobiographical one.

Although Anna Ladd's genre sculptural work is known, she very quickly began to lean towards sculptural portraits. She owns one of three lifetime portraits of the Italian actress Eleanor Duse. In 1917, the Ladds moved to France: Maynard was appointed head of the Children's Bureau of the Red Cross. Contacts in the Red Cross helped Anna to achieve the opening of a fund that raised money specifically for facial prosthetics for war veterans, which allowed her to deploy such a large-scale assistance. For her selfless work, she received the Order of the Legion of Honor, a French national award.

In 1936, the Ladds returned to the United States, where Anna died three years later. Anna's daughter Gabriella married the writer Henry Sedgwick. It was a late marriage, and they had no children left. Anna Ladd's line was cut short.

Alas, many famous people in the twentieth century had children either very unhappy, or died without leaving offspring - how the fates of the children of six poets of the Silver Age developed, for example.