JANE MCADAM FREUD | FAMILY MATTERS

Family Matters

Jane McAdam Freud

Family Matters

Jane McAdam Freud

“We come from matter and return to matter...“ Jane McAdam Freud

Family does matter – as a basic value in its broader sense, yet it is the process of time, and the effect this has on these values that draw our attention. It results from the contemplation of life and death, bringing us closer or drawing us further apart.

Mila Askarova

Foreword

A dialogue between father and daughter, a teacher and student both, lasting a whole lifetime between pauses for reflection and thought. The works in this exhibition are an accumulation of the artist’s observations and responses to her familial surroundings. They depict a struggle between her humble desire to serve her heritage and yet to break free from the natural associations made therein.

As a result works are produced of close ones with great passion and clearly defined style. Certain signature elements of the artist are present in each sculpture, drawing and photograph. A strong, solid touch formed over years of nurturing a natural gift.

Mila Askarova

It is a family matter, a family affair.

My parents, their choices and the way they lived ceaselessly fascinate me. It is in direct contrast to the way my grandparents and certainly my great grandfather Sigmund lived, as head of the household with his family all around. Family is a strange and ambiguous concept when your upbringing is unconventional and placed outside the norm. These experiences can become your example and colour your definition. My definition of family is pretty expansive and inclusive in terms of what it might describe. Families come in all forms, shapes and sizes with the term ‘family’ growing in its definition, ever more inclusive with gay marriages and the single parent choice. Like a sculpture it is a construct, taking various forms and affected by trends.

10.05.2012 Mila Askarova

The title ‘Family Matters’ is very much about process.

It results from the contemplation of life and death and the fact of working with ‘matter’ as in the materials of sculpture. We come from matter and return to matter.

The materials I work with belong themselves to a kind of family. I use materials as a kind of processing agent for my content. Although I am guided by experimentation with materials and processes, my driving instincts affect the content.

Interview with Jane McAdam Freud

You mentioned in an interview that Family Matters is more about the matter of the materials you choose to use rather than the direct definition of the phrase. What is your stand on family and how, if at all, does it relate to your work?

Psychologically I think it was a help. In hindsight I think I felt quite unreal before. By that I mean not fully me, as though I was only acknowledging half of myself. Professionally my family ties were more of a hindrance than help. In meeting new people, inevitable presumptions and comparisons were made which were not there before. Happily the museums still bought my works!

You have recently visited Israel as part of the Friends of the Earth initiative. What was the experience like and are you planning any future similar trips?

I am still processing the experience, which was full of conflicted feelings of heartbreak, hope, confusion and a sense of being helpless alongside the most extraordinary images of antiquity and incredible biblical landscapes.

It made me think that we are all marred and tarred by the sins of the fathers. Human conflict on a familial, cultural or global level has an impact on us. In the Middle East the thing I noticed doing the workshops with the children, and meeting the families in some of the Eco Parks where we stayed was that they were all smiles and happy all the same!

Sigmund Freud was concerned by the psychology of the group, writing many papers on the subject, which I read some years ago prior to participating in a debate at the Philoctetese Centre for the Imagination in NY. I pair the idea of family (as in family trees) with the idea of collecting as we apply the same definitions in terms of grouping. As a nation we like groups, which is reflected in our collecting habits, be that stamps, medals, or regarding train or plane paraphernalia.

We collect, order and define in terms of names and numbers, dates and categories, similarity and difference.

My works are my collection. I collect the hours I put into the works and am only now learning how to let go of my works without regret. It is difficult though as the works are so much of a part of me and embody so much of what I feel. They give expression to feelings that are not perceptible enough to voice. I wanted to be sure that my works went to good homes, which is why I had no problem selling to Museums. Museums value their collections, which I find very consoling.

As I said earlier collecting is part of our cultural identity in the UK. People collect in different ways. In the case of ‘Home’ this piece embodies notions of storing what is meaningful to us. I think it is interesting that Louise Bourgeois used her favourite clothes she wanted to keep and never throw away by making works from them. It is about immortality I suppose.

Our collections may live beyond us and become immortal.

Some of your works such as the Wax works/preserved matter you have held onto for over twenty years – is it difficult to finally let go of them?

10.05.2012

Do you feel that your familial ties have helped you in some way?

Home, a battered door that belonged to your neighbour represents the obsession with collecting, which you subtly linked to the dynamics of our industry – what is your point of view on this and how do you feel it links with this exhibition?

Mila Askarova

At art college when I was 19 or 20 one of my works was bought by the British Museum for their collections which excited the tutors and gave me a real boost. This started a series of sales to the BM, the Ashmolean, Fitzwilliam and V&A. This was the first real trigger although I didn’t appreciate it fully at the time.

However, I don’t think I could cope with going back.

Interview with Jane McAdam Freud

My drawing was first noticed at primary school by the headmistress which although not a starting point in a career it was quite significant for me. Winning those prizes in childhood meant so much to me and was immensely encouraging.

Where do you see your work in twenty years down the line?

43 × 91 × 15 cm

I haven’t looked at them for over 20 years. I built them in the wax that my father bought for him and I to work with in the early nineties and for that reason they are pretty loaded works. I put them in the fridge to keep the wax from melting until I could afford to perhaps cast them into bronze but then I moved on to other projects and sort of forgot about them. Now the fridge has left an empty space in the corner of my studio where it sat forgotten for so long and I really like the empty space. It feels liberating to free up that forgotten yet so long preserved corner.

In reference to letting my works go the answer must now be a resounding none. I am looking forward to this ‘new’ way of working and letting go. I love making new work and I am making space for that.

This Here (2008)

Out of all the works that are part of this show, which work would you gladly take back to your studio and live with for years to come?

Stoneware clay

By the time I am 74 I would love to have had one of my works acquired by the Tate or National Portrait Gallery. It has been my dream since I was a child. In the meantime I clock up the hours it takes to excel at what you do. I am a great believer in hard work and love the saying ‘the harder you work the luckier you are’.

Taken/Nekat (2008)

Stoneware Clay, copper

132 × 74 × 16 cm

Home (2009)

Found object, wood, glass, keys

206 Ă— 36cm

Wax Works/Preserved Matter (1990 t0 date)

Wax, fridge

108 × 50 × 50 cm

After Bacon Plus Natural Forces (1993-95)

Bronze

18Ă— 17 cm

After Bacon Plus Natural Forces (1993-95)

Bronze

22 Ă— 12 cm

After Bacon Plus Natural Forces (1993-95)

Bronze

17 Ă— 16 cm

On The Other Hand (2010)

Clay writing, mirror

28 × 28 × 47 cm

Inside (2008)

Clay

25 × 15 × 17 cm

Remember Me (2008)

Clay

18 × 32 × 19 cm

Plaque (2012)

Terra cotta , sand

26 × 25 × 2 cm

Mesh Head in Net (2012)

Bronze mesh, fishing net

100 × 107 × 280 cm

Mesh Head (1995)

Found object, aluminium in rim

32 Ă— 33 cm

Mesh Head 2 (1995)

Bronze mesh, found object

29 Ă— 24 cm

Mesh Head 3 (1995)

Bronze mesh, found object

27 Ă— 23cm

Mesh Head (in aluminium rim)

Material?

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Mesh Head Medal (2010)

Bronze, aluminium, found metal, copper

118 Ă— 50cm

Earthstone Triptych 2 (2011 to date)

Terra cotta clay

88 × 88 × 38cm

Portrait of my Father (2012)

Terra cotta, sand

50 × 32 × 40cm

Merged Portrait (2011)

Terra cotta, sand

54 Ă— 35 Ă— 30cm

Self Portrait (1998-99)

Bronze

39 × 30 × 24cm

Subjective Object (2008)

Stoneware clay

17 × 28 × 18cm

Peter (2006)

Biscuit clay

25 × 28 × 20cm

Chris (2011)

Bronze

20 × 18 × 18cm

?

David

Material?

NEED IMAGE CREDIT

Family Size (2007)

Bronze

14 × 23 × 4cm (each)

Mm & mm (2010)

Stoneware clay

55 × 54 × 12cm

Hidden Light (2010)

Stoneware clay

23 × 76 × 46cm

Annabel (1995)

Bronze

53 × 44 × 45cm

Victoria (1995)

Bronze

52 × 50 × 30cm

Duohead Triptych (2010)

Stoneware clay

190 × 75 × 60cm

Venus (Roman Bust) (2006)

Stoneware clay

34 × 33 × 26cm

Aphrodite (Greek Bust) (2006)

Stoneware clay

35 × 36 × 38cm

Veiled Relief (2011)

Photo, tracing paper

841 Ă— 594cm

You See (2011)

Photo, tracing paper

37 Ă— 28cm

See You

Photo, tracing paper

37 Ă— 28cm

Earth Medal (20011-12)

Metal

8 Ă— 8cm

Truth Medal (20011-12)

Bronze

10 Ă— 10cm

Other Medal (2012)

Plaster

11 Ă— 11cm

Drawing 1 (2011)

Pencil on paper

22.5 Ă— 22.5cm

Drawing 2 (2011)

Pencil on paper

22.5 Ă— 22.5cm

Drawing 3 (2011)

Pencil on paper

22.5 Ă— 22.5cm

Drawing 4 (2011)

Pencil on paper

22.5 Ă— 22.5cm

Drawing 5 (2011)

Pencil on paper

22.5 Ă— 22.5cm

Drawing 6 (2011)

Pencil on paper

22.5 Ă— 22.5cm

Drawing from EarthStone Triptych (2011)

Pencil on paper

37 Ă— 37cm

Drawing (profile) (2011)

Pencil on paper

37 Ă— 37cm

Us (2011)

Photo

89 × 63cm

Us 2 (2011)

Photo

89 × 63cm

29.03.2012 Estelle Lovatt

As the daughter of probably the most famous portrait painter of his generation, Jane McAdam Freud's latest exhibition pays tribute to her beloved father, Lucian.

“I am channelling my artistic heritage and focusing on familial relationships,“ admits the London-born sculptor.

“It is part of a continuing theme I have been exploring about my family. It includes a very large bronze portrait of my half-sister Annabel and sculptures of my husband and children as well as work relating to my father.“

“Everything in this exhibition is about the internal struggle with who I am and what my family represents to me. Family memories of my childhood are defined with positive experiences to do with art. My mother kept all my sketches and books, which I still have, and my father, Lucien, gave me most attention as a child when I was drawing. I remember him watching me when I was sketching.

Jewish News

And with a strong artistic background – her mother Katherine McAdam was also an artist – and a mixture of religious influences being half Jewish and half Catholic, Jane is continually inspired by her experiences.

“Then when I was at primary school, I overheard the headmistress telling a visitor during an open-day about my ability in art. She showed her some drawings that I had done in an exercise book. Overhearing the awe with which this teacher spoke was incredibly bewitching and exciting. This, I think, sealed it for me about being an artist. And it instilled in me a certain confidence about my future as an artist.“ And although Jane's mother and paternal grandparents influenced her most growing up, it was unequivocally the act of drawing her father as he lay on his deathbed that has inspired her forthcoming exhibition more than anything else.

So, aptly, Jane's solo exhibition is entitled Family Matters. “The new sculpture I've created especially for this exhibition shows my face with my father's, both in the one artwork,“ she explains. “As I'm unable to sketch him from life again I created an amalgamation of both our faces. I use myself as the model to emphasise genetic similarities as well as emotional and professional connections.

29.03.2012

name, Jane McAdam. Then, in 1991, I was awarded the Freedom of the City of London and had to produce my birth certificate. It was then that colleagues discovered who my father was. But it's the truth and I am a part of my father. He is here, inadvertently helping me in everything I do.“

“The other highlight of my exhibition is the large-scale relief of my late father, EarthStone Triptych, which is inspired by the sketches I made of him on his deathbed.

It's a memorial to his life and legacy.“ Estelle Lovatt, art critic for the BBC Radio 2’s flagship arts programme The Arts Show with Claudia Winkleman, as well as for various independent radio stations throughout Great Britain.

Estelle Lovatt

“I was also very close to both my paternal grandparents, Lucie and Ernst Freud,“ she adds. “They came to visit, wrote regularly and sent wonderful birthday gifts. For those formative early years they had an influence on my life and my aspirations. In fact, I'm sure that my paternal grandmother, Lucie, was much more of an influence on me than I realise. I think that I connected to my father indirectly, through Lucie, as much as directly with him.“ But her connection with art started early. “My first experience of being enchanted with the materials and tactility of sculpture was in the sandpit at nursery school,“ she recalls. “When I first put my hands through the water into the sand I felt transformed. I cannot put into words the way it made me feel, but I knew then that I wanted to do more.

The award-winning artist, who has works in major art museums and collections throughout the world, is proud to use her family surname. “In the beginning I used my

Jewish News

“That's the last time that I saw my father,“ she admits.

“It was an extremely challenging experience but also most stimulating and very motivating. It means, meant, has been, and is, everything to me. I am highly influenced by my family and my family history, but also have something to say myself and I'm compelled to express it in an attempt to make sense of my life. Making art has given me breath - it is and has been a means of conveying my perceptions.“

Knowing how Freud ‘sculpted’ with paint, did he ask his daughter to teach him to sculpt? “My father did. Yes“, she says; she taught sculptural techniques during her time at the Royal Mint in South Wales. “And it shows in his painting techniques that he loved sculpture. That he was a fan of sculpture even though he was a painter!

I’m sure he would have loved to have been a sculptor.“ Estelle Lovatt Art of England, May 2012, Issue 90

Estelle Lovatt

The rocky application of clay not only resembles him, but it is ‘of’ him, ahead of the Freudian psychological perspective that exists beyond philosophy; beyond science; beyond truth; beyond life after death (think of how flowers grow, even when beneath blankets of freezing snow).

Art of England, Issue 90

Name of piece

Material

Earthstone Triptych is a complete installation – placed by a mirror enabling one to see both sides of the sculpture simultaneously; one side depicting “Lucien awake.

His eyes wide open. The other, not“. Getting down low to view it, I’m reminded of Holbein’s anamorphic masterpiece, The Ambassadors, with the skull of mortality only visible when vying the artwork from certain angles.

There’s also a plaque with her initials, ‘JMcAF’, on it: “this part of the sculpture“, she confides, “broke off being moved to the kiln for firing“, but it works as an effective persuasive symbol for many things, including separation.

Jane recalls her father leaving when she “was a child of eight years old, not seeing him again until I was 31, arriving back in London after studying sculpture at the Rome Academy of Fine Art.“

05.2012

Her close-up pencil drawings look like sensitively observed donor drawings prepared for 15th century tombs, keeping his spirit alive. “Ashes to ashes, dust to dust…“ from Genesis, makes this sculpted portrait a wonderful ‘memento mori’. The process of mortality is not forgotten in the fact that clay – more than any other medium – is all about the manifestation fo the four natural elements of antiquity – earth, water, air and fired combined to survive and stand along.

Isabel H Langtry The Principal of Hampstead School of Art, Isabel H Langtry

Text

Its almost as if Jane McAdam Freud’s portrait of her father has haunted this years Hampstead School of Art Foundation Course students. They responded to Jane’s recent lecture at the School - a mixture of revealing warmth and heady sculptural language, with such enthusiasm that a new set of emerging portrait artists has been born. Jane McAdam Freud will always be associated with our Class of 2012.

Jane McAdam Freud is an artist who has long been associated with the Freud Museum London, both personally and professionally. The Freud Museum, at 20 Maresfield Gardens in Hampstead, was the home of Jane’s great grandfather Sigmund Freud and his family when they escaped the 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 as it was during his lifetime. The house is also filled with memories of Anna, who lived there for over forty years and continued to develop her pioneering psychoanalytic work, especially with children. The Museum has permanent displays which include Freud’s iconic couch, desk and large collection of antiquities.

The Freud Museum also has a tradition of exhibiting works by contemporary artists who engage with psychoanalysis and Freudian ideas. For many years the Freud Museum has recognised the importance of Freud’s theories in the history of art by inviting contemporary artists to exhibit site-responsive works in the museum.

The works on display may be thought-provoking and sometimes disturbing, but they relate directly to Freud’s ideas and the basic concerns of psychoanalysis. Artists who have exhibited here include Susan Hiller, Sophie Calle and Mat Collishaw. The interplay between artists and the collections in the house enrich the visitor experience immeasurably.

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In this context Jane McAdam Freud has exhibited at the Freud Museum on three occasions. In her first involvement, Jane was artist-in-residence in 2005-6. The exhibition that resulted, Relative Relations, explored the complex concept of relationships. During her eighteen months as she took a detailed look at the collections of her great-grandfather, Sigmund Freud. A number of these antiquities inspired echoes in her own work and she discovered echoes of her work in his collection. This prompted self-reflection on the concept of relationships, particularly between McAdam Freud and her greatgrandfather, between viewers and art, between herself and her own work. The two collections – Jane McAdam Freud’s and Sigmund Freud’s – were displayed side-by-

Carol Seigel

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“Psycho dynamically, I wanted to express the inside of the sculpture as a metaphor for the thought process. Also I wanted the inside to be as telling as the outside. The process required me to make the sculptures hollow and uniform in order to fire the clay. I hollowed the forms following the outer contours. With the reverse side of the portraits (as seen from the back) the resulting image is random in that I made very few conscious decisions as the image was created by the process. I like the way that the inside is so different in expression from the outside. It could be a comment on our public face verses our private face.“ Jane McAdam Freud In Jane’s most recent exhibition at the Freud Museum in early 2012, Lucian Freud My Father, Jane McAdam Freud presented a large scale sculpture portraying her father

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. 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.’

Jane McAdam Freud’s three exhibitions at the Freud Museum have all allowed her to explore the complexity of her complicated family history, and have added to the Museum’s own programme of contemporary artists exhibiting in this unique environment. As with many artists before, Jane’s work was strengthened by its location within Sigmund Freud’s home and her personal response to his writings and ideas.

Carol Seigel

The second exhibition by Jane in spring 2011, Stone Speak, placed sculptures in the garden of the Freud Museum. Here she collaborated with an “author duo“ to express the concept of writers working together.

Responding to their process through sculpture, the resulting triptych symbolized the twists and turns implicit in fiction: the ‘play’ with events to turn reality on its head. Rooted in the imagination the novel grows and emerges from fragmented parts. Working from the authors’ likenesses, McAdam Freud experimented with large clay relief forms suggestive of paper scrolls, perhaps torn and worn. The title “Stone Speak“ was derived from Sigmund Freud’s comment when referring to his collected antiquities exclaiming, “Stones speak!“ Stone Speak is meant much like the term “Art speak“.

It refers to the language of the stone in its ability to express meaning. The meaning is expressed through the material, analogous to the way language is articulated through words.

Lucian Freud. Jane spent many hours with her father in the months before his death in July 2011 making sketches for this new work. This was shown at the Freud Museum alongside other smaller scale work and preparatory sketches.

Carol Seigel Director, Freud Museum London May 2012

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side: ‘the concept manages to be simple but profound at the same time. It got her thinking about relations, she says, all sorts – between herself and her greatgrandfather, between viewers and art, between herself and her own work. The idea of pairing pieces from her work with Freud’s for an exhibition followed naturally’ (Camden New Journal)

Design: ARPA (A Research Projects Agency) The photographs of Us (B&W) and Us 2 (in color) were used with permission from Jane Bown & Simon Barber Duohead is part of the Private Collection of David Freud

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