Narrative:

Jane’s work frequently finds inspiration from the rich source of her own family background, referencing both the remarkable collection of antiquities and sculptural objects collected by her grandfather and the cultural legacy of Freudian psychoanalysis which has had such a profound and lasting effect on contemporary psyche.

https://www.freud.org.uk/exhibitions/jane-mcadam-freud-relative-relations/

‘During her eighteen months as artist-in-residence at the Freud Museum she took a detailed look at the collection of her great-grandfather, Sigmund Freud. A number of these antiquities have inspired echoes in her own work and she has discovered echoes of her work in his collection. This prompted self-reflection on the concept of relationships, particularly between McAdam Freud and her great-grandfather, between viewers and art, between herself and her own work.’

‘Relative Relations’ - Jane McAdam Freud

Sigmund Freud collection seems largely dominated by human figures and animals or indeed a hybrid of the two. His classical antiquities from the history of western and near eastern art.

p.5‘Sigmund Freud compared archaeology to psychoanalysis and antiquities to repressed ideas brought to light. His collection and the Freud Museum in general exist on the boundaries of the real and metaphorical dimensions.’

P.6 ‘The antiquities collected by Sigmund Freud are typical of the sort of antiquities collected by learned men during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. However, set within his own house which has been preserved as it was during his lifetime, the antiquities are part of an overall context in which Freud mixed the ancient world with the modern, work with pleasure, and emotions with science.’

P.8 Through McAdam Freud’s study of the collection and her musings about what motivated her great-grandfather to collect and the meanings he saw in them, she was ready to begin making connections between her works and the objects he collected.’

P.18 Jane said: ‘Freud’s collection so mirrored my own works. I was able to spend twenty months working directly with his classical antiquities from the history of western and near eastern art.’

P 78 Q: Your exhibition explores a number of different kinds of relationship. For instance, you pair your own work with a selection of Freud’s collection of antiquities. Could you explain the basis for some of the connections you have made?

Jane said: I should start by identifying the obvious physical connection between myself and my great grandfather Sigmund Freud. This relationship provides the principle basis or primal driver for looking at other connections. Freud collected ‘sculpture’, I make sculpture. That in itself evokes my curiosity and forges a strong link. My aim is to display through ‘pairing’, aesthetic and sculptural connections which have come through the activity of collecting antiquities and the activity of making sculpture.

P. 86 (The (Venus (Roman Bust) and the Aphrodite (Greek Bust) were both used in Jane’s installation ‘Allora’)

Q: Are our relationships and the way we live now, inextricably bound to the past? Your work ‘Allora’ seems to suggest they are.

J: ‘Allora from the Italian and meaning ‘Now then’ is inspired by the twinned setting of the pair of marble busts which Freud housed in his study, at either end of the mantelpiece.

That the Italian word ‘allora’ goes back to Roman times is also apt as I have enlarged these two works of antiquity from Freud’s collection, one Greek and one Roman. For my installation ‘Alloea’ these pieces face inwards and are alternated with busts ​​of two members of the Museum Staff. The words Now Then consecutively run across the backs of the four pieces while we look at the image of a Circle projected by mirrors and the repetition of faces reflected back to include the viewer.