New exhibition unravels Sigmund Freud’s complex relationship with the women in his life and work

Women intrigued Sigmund Freudbut they also confused him. As the founder of psychoanalysis ever said“The big question that has never been answered, and that despite my thirty years of research into the feminine soul, I still have not been able to answer, is ‘What does a woman want?’”

Freud learned a lot from the women around him, including his patients, his colleagues and his daughters. Now, 85 years after the death of the Austrian neurologist, a new exhibition in London Freud Museum explores his complicated relationship with women.

“Women and Freud: patients, pioneers, artists” fills the entire museum, which was Freud’s last home and workplace. It contains historical artefacts, such as manuscripts, letters, photographs, objects, diaries and film footage, as well as contemporary works by women artists. The exhibition also explores the history of the Hogarth Presswhich started publishing Freud’s work a hundred years ago.

The neurologist has developed famously a lot of controversial– and often incorrect or misogynistictheories about women during his lifetime. The exhibition aims to present this part of Freud’s work in a new light, arguing that it may have inadvertently furthered Freud’s progress. feminist revolutions that came later.

“Has the talking cure given women the power to speak with their own voices?” writes the museum about the exhibition website. ‘Did Freud bring women’s private, secret thoughts and emotions into a public (and ‘scientific’) discourse so that they could think openly about their own sexuality even while arguing with him? Where is sexual difference eliminated by gendered expectations or prohibitions? These are some of the questions that the exhibition raises through its women.”

According to the show, it is the first show to spotlight the women in Freud’s world Art newspaper‘s Maev Kennedy. Many of his patients became successful psychoanalysts themselves. The exhibition explores women’s professional contributions not only to the fields of child psychology and child development, but also to the “foundations of psychoanalysis,” says Michael Marder, the author of a forthcoming book on Freud. Observerby Vanessa Thorpe.

An entire room of the museum is dedicated to this Anna FreudFreud’s youngest daughter, who later became a pioneering psychoanalyst herself. The exhibition is also a celebration Melanie Klein, Julia Mitchell, Julia Kristeva, Helene Deutsch And Marie Bonaparte.

Bonaparte was Napoleon’s great-grandniece, and she helped Freud, who was Jewish, escape the Nazis in 1938. “Despite the major role that ‘the last Bonaparte’ played in the history of psychoanalysis, too few are aware of her important contributions,” he said. museum.

Artworks in the exhibition include spreads from Alison Bechdel’s graphic memoir Are you my mother? And Paula Rego‘s fabric ‘dollies’. Also on display is Sarah Lucas’ SEX BOMBa concrete and bronze sculpture of a stiletto-clad figure sitting slumped in a chair.

“The exhibition’s attempt to portray the story of Freud’s relationship with women in a positive light – and even psychoanalysis’s relationship to femininity – is commendable,” writes Simon Waardama scholar of literature and philosophy at Kingston University in London, in the Conversation. “However, it is left to art to retell this story through more disturbing interventions.”

“Women and Freud: patients, pioneers, artists‘ can be seen at the Freud Museum in London until May 5, 2025.

Receive the latest stories in your inbox every weekday.