5/1/2012 - Little Water Girl Kicks-Off Tour of City’s Art
Public Arts Committee to lead a brief discussion on popular public artwork during May’s First Friday Art Walk

Portland, Maine – This Friday as a part of First Friday Art Walk, the Portland Public Arts Committee (PPAC) will launch Art in Our Front Yard: Portland’s Public Art Collection with a discussion of the Lillian M.N. Stevens Memorial Fountain or Temperance (The Little Water Girl) located in the Portland Public Library (photo attached). PPAC Chair Alice Spencer will lead a discussion of the statue, its history and significance within the city’s art collection. The public is encouraged to join the PPAC this Friday and learn about the art in their front yard.

The Little Water Girl was donated to the City of Portland by the Women’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) in 1917. At the time, the WCTU urged its members to create public fountains to provide “pure drinking water” as an alternative to liquor. The Little Water Girl was given in honor of Lillian Ames Stevens, who was the second president of the WCTU, led efforts with the Anti-Saloon League and prohibition as well as supported the women’s suffrage movement.

Portland’s Little Water Girl is a copy of the original bronze fountain sculpted by English artist George Wade in 1893 for the World’s Fair in Jackson Park, Chicago. Two other copies are located in London, England and Detroit, Michigan. The fountain features a barefoot girl with outstretched hands cradling a small cup with water trickling into a basin below and resembles the Loyal Temperance Union badge.

The Little Water Girl was originally installed in Congress Square and twelve years later was moved to Deering Oaks where horses, dogs and people quenched their thirst. She was finally relocated to the Portland Public Library in 1979. An important part of the PPAC’s mission is to preserve and restore the city’s public art collection. In keeping with this charge, two years ago, the Little Water Girl was re-plumbed to a working fountain, cleaned and had her granite base was restored and renovated in conjunction with the library renovation. She now stands proudly in the lobby welcoming visitors to the building. While these renovations were underway, the Chicago Parks District recast the bronze statue to replace the original, which had been stolen in the late 1950’s.

In April 2000, the City Council established the Portland Public Art Program to preserve, restore and enhance the City’s public art collection. The Portland Public Art Program commissions art that engages with the surrounding environment to create, enrich, or reveal a sense of place, and to express the spirit, values, visions and poetry of place that collectively define Portland.

Currently, the public art collection contains twenty-eight works of art that are permanently installed throughout the city, including works of historical significance dating from the nineteenth century, as well as contemporary pieces that reflect the diversity and the spirit of the city. Of the twenty-eight pieces, twelve located within walking distance of the Arts District will be a part of the Art in Our Front Yard: Portland’s Public Art Collection series. June’s featured art work is the Jewel Box Bus Shelter in Monument Square. For more information about the Portland Public Art Committee, visit online.

When: Friday, May 4, 2012
5:30 PM

Where: Lillian M.N. Stevens Memorial Fountain or Temperance (The Little Water Girl)
Portland Public Library, Portland
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