A ring of figures – male and female – fleeting and gay – like the wind

      and the spray. (1.)

Sigismund Blumann was a lover of language and did not shy away from putting his own unique spin on photographic titles. What he called: Fountain of the Bacchanti, was its actual title, as supplied by its’ creator: Wind and Spray. Executed by American sculptor Anna Coleman Ladd, (1878-1939) it was located for the duration of the exposition within the lagoon on the grounds of the Palace of Fine Arts at the 1915 Panama Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco. It features five bronze figures, each about four feet in height- both male and female- holding hands and dancing around multiple water jets spraying skyward. Alternatively, the photographer made a different representation for these figures- as “Bacchanti”. According to the online source Women’n Art: “Bacchantes and Maenads were women who worshiped the Greek god Dionysus, or Bacchus to the Romans. They were not only the female followers of this god, but they’re also the most important part of his retinue.”

As a matter of fact, Ladd had a total of three sculptures displayed on the grounds of the 1915 exposition: “Anna was absolutely becoming an artist of note with 1915 arguably being the pinnacle of her artistic career before WWI.  That year she was invited to display five sculptures on the world stage at the 1915 San Francisco World’s Fair.  The event, celebrating the completion of the Panama Canal, was titled the “Panama-Pacific International Exhibition” and spanned 600 acres of the city’s waterfront and lasted nine months.  Among the works chosen were “Sun God and Python”, “Wind and Spray,” and “Triton Babies,” which can be found today in the Boston Public Garden as a fountain sculpture.” (2.)

Anna Coleman Ladd was a gifted New England sculptor best known today as having “devoted her time and skills throughout World War I to designing prosthetics for soldiers who were disfigured from injuries received in combat.”

The Archives of American Art at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington D.C. holds the papers of Anna Coleman Watts Ladd in the Archives of American Art. A grouping of photographs of Wind and Spray yields some interesting history for the sculpture. On the verso of one print showing the sculpture in 1933 at Boston’s Public Garden, it cites the current owner as being Samuel Insull of Chicago (3.) and lists locations where it was displayed. In addition to the 1915 Panama Pacific exposition, it was shown at the Albright Gallery in Buffalo, Rittenhouse Square in Philadelphia and Boston’s Public Garden. The location for the sculpture is presently unknown, although Skinner auction house in Boston offered a green patina bronze (undetermined size or edition) of Wind and Spray for sale in September of 1983.  (lot 335)

1. Description: Wind and Spray. Anna Coleman Ladd, from the volume Sculpture of the Exposition Palaces and Courts, by Juliet James: 1915: San Francisco: H.S. Crocker Company, Publishers. 2. Newspaper article: The sculptress emerges: Anna Coleman Ladd—All Sides of Life: Matt Genta and Kris McGinn: The Cricket, Manchester, MA: March 28, 2024 3. Writing on the verso of a photograph of the fountain on display in the Boston Public Garden ca. 1933 indicates the bronze fountain grouping was owned by Chicago business magnate Samuel Insull. (1859-1938) Earlier, the Kineton Parkes 1921 volume Sculpture of To-Day stated “the Wind and Spray fountain owned by the Princess A. M. Borghese, at Rome”…