Copyright Freud Museum, London

The Freud Museum in North London is actually the house where Freud spent the last year of his life from 1938 to 1939. His daughter, Anna, the youngest child of six, continued to reside at their home until her death in 1982. As she requested the residence was preserved and became open to the public in 1986.

Freud fled to London from Vienna after escaping the Nazi prison that held him and his family in 1938. He made his home at 20 Maresfield Gardens where he recreated his working environment to resemble what he left behind in Vienna after 47 years of psychiatric practice. The Museum not only preserved Freud’s office but also Anna’s, who specialised in child psychology.

Visitors are privy to the conservatory designed by Freud’s architect son, Ernst, the dining room containing Anna’s Austrian peasant furniture, the study/library where the original analytic couch on which Freud’s patients reclined can be found, and antiques from ancient Greece, Rome, Egypt, and the Orient. Displayed on the shelf behind his desk, Freud’s book collection includes his favourite authors, Goethe and Shakespeare. Pictures, such as Oedipus and the Riddle of the Sphinx, and photographs including his wife, Martha and Ernst von Fleischl adorn the walls. That Freud felt his art collection was significant to his work is evident by the archaeological metaphors he used to describe psychoanalysis.

The experience of surrounding oneself amongst Freud’s belongings offers a unique insight into the foundations of psychoanalysis as well as an opportunity to appreciate a wide spectrum of art works. For instance, in addition to his priceless ancient artefacts, visitors will find a sketch of Freud by Salvador Dali. Interestingly, Freud never saw the sketch because a friend felt that it was too crude a rendition of his imminent death. (The last 16 years of Freud’s life were spent battling cancer of the palette.)

As well as preserving the past, the Museum also indulges in temporary exhibitions featuring modern to contemporary art as it relates to the subject of psychoanalysis. Currently on view, The Laws of the Father, examines the early years of psychoanalysis by exploring the father-son conflict. In doing so, the show expounds the origins of present-day authoritarian ideals and modern counter-cultures. ON display are literary texts, videos, photographs, and objects of sentimental regard to stimulate the psychoanalytical explanations.

Freud, Jung, D. H. Lawrence, Rilke, Werfel, and Kafka among others, were familiar with the father-son protagonists and were all involved in the conflict. For instance, Hans Gross (1847–1915) founder of modern Criminology and his son Otto (1877-1920), an anarchist, drug addict, and early psychoanalyst are represented as an example of a classic father-son conflict which entails the patriarchal beliefs of the father against the matriarchal views of his son. Hans, most famously known for establishing the concentration camp, was one of Kafka’s teachers and his work is echoed in The Trial and In the Penal Colony (both on view), while son, Otto belongs to social and sexual revolution traditions that began with D.H. Lawrence and remained prominent into the 1960s.

A visit to the Freud Museum can prove stimulating to both art and psychology buffs. For those who find the current exhibition a bit too analytically dense, opportunity for clarification is available by attending one or both of the exhibition’s closing symposiums, Gross v. Gross on 30th January and Sexual Revolutions on 31 January. If that is not enough, remember the words of Freud himself, “sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.”

For more informations please visit the Freud Museum website at www.freud.org.uk.