The story behind this specific KC fountain is as follows:

To further enhance the Plaza’s architectural & artistic connections to Seville, the J.C. Nichols Company hired New York sculptor Bernhard Zuckerman in the 1960's. Zuckerman was asked to create a replica of the Spanish city’s Fuente de la Plaza Virgen de los Reyes.

The original lamppost/fountain artwork (Fuente de la Plaza Virgen de los Reyes) in Seville, Spain was created by Jose Lafita Diaz in the mid 1920s for the Ibero-American exposition of 1929. The water-spouting heads are replicas of Roman grotesques found in the Casa de Pilatos.

Built in the 16th Century, the Casa de Pilatos is an Andalusian palace in Seville, Spain, which serves as the permanent residence of the Dukes of Medinaceli. However, the Fuente de la Plaza Virgen de los Reyes was added later - as mentioned above.

Roman Grotesques are a 16th-century decorative style in which parts of human, animal, and plant forms are distorted and mixed.

In the 20th century, the grotesque has again become a characteristic form of art. It then had an effect on various modernist styles (for example, expressionism and surrealism). Modernist grotesque tends to transform our familiar world suddenly into one that is alien and hostile. The grotesque is permeated with a “fear of life” and a sense of the absurdity of being.

The "grotesques" face is an art form dating back to the 16th Century and is sort of a "cousin" to gargoyles that can be found on classic structures around the world.

After 40 years of use, underground water damage had so badly wrecked the fountain's electrical and hydraulic systems that the Seville Light Fountain in Kansas City had to be totally shut down in 2006.

However, in late 2014, the fountain underwent $500,000 or so worth of repairs and is now once again operational. The four faces on the fountain may be "ugly"; however, as art such fountains are quite beautiful.