Scudder Letter to Ladd

Letter written by Janet Scudder from 70bis rue Notre-Dames-des-Champs, Paris, May 7, 1919

Dear Mrs. Ladd, 

It is our grand pity that you left Paris and I wish that you could come back. Your great work for the French mutilés is in the hands of a little person who has the soul of a flea. I suffer much. Poupelet has written you frequently and let you know how the work you started in Pairs has grown and how more and more mutilés apply for missing features. Often there have been as many as 18 people in the studio at one time, there is not room to turn about in it. Since your departure the place is closed every day until 2 o’clock and the mutilés are not allowed to enter until that hour. One poor thing came all the way from the provinces to get fixed up. He had just enough money to get here and back, arrived on Saturday afternoon, place was closed until Monday at 2, he did not have money enough to stay, so he went home. This story and many other incidents of a like nature stirred up my excitement - I got Colonel ??? one evening, showed him the studio and the work, called his attention to the lack of equipment and space for an oeuvre that had long since outgrown my poor little studio. He was much impressed and said that he would have something done about it at once, asked me to send in a report. This was months ago. I wrote a long and careful report all about your oeuvre, mentioning the work, your struggles, this final success of your experiments, and the present needs of the oeuvre. In this report, there was no mention of Miss Poupelet and Miss Brent. I did not know at the time that they had such much to do with your oeuvre, did not know either that Miss Brent had been given sole charge of it. My report was passed about from hand to hand and finally reached Miss Harper and Miss Brent. They, it seemed, were very indignant that I sould butt in to a thing that did not concern me, and they turned down offers of assistance, said they had everything they wanted, that this studio was quite adequate, that they did not require a bigger allowance of money - in fact, that Miss Scudder’s report was a deliberate exaggeration, written for the purpose of regaining possession of the studio! I was completely occupied with my work for the Red Cross, traveling all the time, could not have used my studio if I had it, but that did not count. Under their petty little minds, they saw no other reason for “interference” on my part. Your work continues to grow in importance but it continues to stumble along in its present quarters, closed always until 2 o’clock, mutilés turned away always in the morning and many such never returning. I have again made an effort to get the oeuvre a proper installation and to force Miss Brent to accept it. I gave her congée for the 15th of this month. The Red Cross was obliged to do something about it, and Miss Hoyt has informed me that they have made another appropriation. Miss Brent says that they haven’t so I don’t know who is lying. Bus alas for the mutiles, she has taken a studio which is occupied in the morning by a school and the new place will be opened only at 2 o’clock and there will be no more creature comforts than at present. The concierge says that when you were here she never had to turn anybody away, that the key for the upper studio was always in the door and the mutiles were allowed to enter at all hours. You would be very sad to see them now, why did you ever give up the second studio? I suppose it was for lack of funds. There is nothing to be done further with the Red Cross, each time I tried to get something for your oeuvre, Miss Brent blocks the way. “C’est moi la directrice,” and she will have no suggestions from anybody. She is, it seems, absolutely in control and she runs your oeuvre as though it were a pin factory, the element of humanity does not enter in. If she would leave the oeuvre in the hands of mademoiselle Poupelet, I would allow it to stay in my lower studio and give over the upper one to the work also, as I am going home soon, but on condition that the mutilés are received at all hours. But the present teutonic methods are clung to and there is nothing doing. Why don’t you raise some money in America, and if you can’t come back yourself to restore your job over here to its old time conditions, send somebody in your place or send the money to Poupelet, directly. It would be better of course if you could come back but I suppose you could not do that. I should have written you long ago but I thought it would bother you and also I had hopes of pulling off a reform in time. It is enraging when you think how we treat our own soldiers, how we spend any amount of money on them, that we should be so mean to these French poilus who have given more than their lives to humanity. Of course it is wonderful that Americans can and are allowed to restore the faces of the mutilés but why not add a little more humanity to this process. To my mind, your oeuvre is one of the finest works America has done during the war, but it is certainly done in a very ungracious manner at present. 

I wish you would come back and kick up a dust, and then put back into the work the good comradeship that was there before you went away, though even you would have difficulty in moving this present directrice. She is an avenging, pig-headed, stony-hearted, germanized American, also she is not your friend.

Sincerely yours, 

Janet Scudder

By the way, it's at this moment that you should be given the red ribbon for what you have done. Medals and decorations are flying about for anyone who has helped the French, and you certainly deserve half a dozen. You may be dead sure that if this question comes up, Miss Brent will grab what you have earned. You have a staunch friend in Poupelet, but I doubt she can protect your interests against such a force. I know that you are too big a person to allow this to count but I should like to see you decorated. I am more and more impressed by what you did for France and I am looking out for an opportunity to express myself on the subject to the proper people. I doubt if I can do very much for you however. Come over yourself, straighten out your oeuvre, and get your ribbon. You deserve it more than any other American woman. I am going back to America in a few weeks, about end of June, going into business as a house painter in New York, still mad about color and can’t stop even for sculpture. If you do come over, get yourself reinstated as directrice over there before leaving America. In Paris, you will probably find everything closed up, nailed and sealed. Even though this oeuvre is yours, you will have to have supreme authority from somewhere or you will not be able to change the present situation.

Smithsonian Institution Archives of American Art 1932 728; image 6