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Freud Museum Opens Lucian Freud My Father

The Freud Museum presents Lucian Freud My Father. A personal portrayal: Sculpture by Jane McAdam Freud

EarthStone, 2011 Jane McAdam Freud © the artist

Artist Jane McAdam Freud presents a large scale sculpture portraying her father Lucian Freud. On exhibition for the first time in London’s Freud Museum – once home to her great grandfather, Sigmund Freud. Jane spent many hours with her father in the months before his death in July 2011 making sketches for this new work. It will be shown at the Freud Museum alongside other smaller scale work and preparatory sketches.

Although a great inspiration to her and a regular presence in her childhood, Lucian Freud became only an occasional figure in his daughter’s life as she grew up; when Jane was eight years old, father and daughter lost contact, only to reconnect when Jane was 31. By then she was respected artist herself, having established a reputation as a sculptor under the name of Jane McAdam. When they met again, Jane says:

At that time I saw my father regularly and, over about six months, we made sculpture. While we sat for each other, modelling in wax, we chatted a lot and he taught me about light – to work from natural daylight or electric light, but not both at the same time. He taught me what it meant to really concentrate. He looked with every inch of his body, his muscles, and nerves, his whole being. We darted around each other looking at the forms; it was exhausting and demanding – but also enlivening and inspiring.
Some time ago, I asked him if he would sit for me. True to his word, he sat for me very recently. The last time I saw my father was shortly before his death, when I finished the sketches of him. I’ve now used them to make this large portrait sculpture. It helps me to keep him alive.

Born in 1958 in London, Jane McAdam Freud is the daughter of Lucian Freud and Katherine McAdam. Her multi-disciplinary practice covers drawing, print, sculpture, medals and digital media. Jane received her first degree from Central School of Art, London, was awarded the British Art Medal Scholarship in Rome and is a graduate of the Royal College of Art. Her international shows include NY, LA, Taipei, Berlin and the Czech Republic. In June and July this year Hinged was shown at the Freud Museum of Dreams in St. Petersburg and HIStory shown at the Austrian Consulate Gallery in Cracow in September/October. In the UK her solo shows include the Ashmolean Museum-Oxford, Fitzwilliam Museum-Cambridge, Hunterian Museum-Glasgow, and Freud Museum-London where she was artist in residence in 2006. Jane’s work is represented in numerous major national and international public collections. The British Museum made their first acquisition in 1980 while she was a student at the Central. Other national collections include the V&A, National Gallery archives, Ashmolean and Fitzwilliam Museums. International public collections include the National Gallery of Greece, Berlin State Museum, National Museum of Copenhagen and the Carnegie Museum of Art and Brooklyn Museum USA. Jane has taught at many art schools and is an Associate Lecturer at Central St Martins, London and is a sculpture tutor at Morley College, London. She lives and works in London.

The Freud Museum, was the home of Sigmund Freud and his family when they escaped Nazi annexation of Austria in 1938. It remained the family home until Anna Freud, the youngest daughter, died in 1982. The centrepiece of the museum is Freud’s study, preserved just as it was during his lifetime. It contains Freud’s remarkable collection of antiquities: Egyptian; Greek; Roman and Oriental. Almost 2,000 items fill cabinets and are ranged on every surface. There are rows of ancient figures on the desk where Freud wrote until the early hours of the morning. The walls are lined with shelves containing Freud’s large library.

Freud Museum
20 Maresfield Gardens
London NW3 5SX
tel: +44 (0)20 7435 2002
fax: +44 (0)20 7431 5452
www.freud.org.uk

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