Oscar Nemon’s Portraits of Sigmund Freud

Abstract

Portraying Sigmund Freud during the 1930s brought worldwide fame to Oscar Nemon (1906–1985). Two seminal portraits of the psychoanalyst drew international attention to Nemon’s contemporaneous and future sculptural work. Freud sat for Nemon twice, in 1931 and 1936. The first portrait transformed Nemon’s standing as a portrait sculptor. His portraits of Freud, along with his later sculptures of Winston Churchill, would become his most famous, most referenced, and most widely reproduced works. Although they owe their popularity and reputation primarily to their famous model, these works by Oscar Nemon are nonetheless accomplished and exceptional examples of portrait sculpture. This paper explores the historiography of Nemon’s portrayal of Freud; the context of commissioning the portraits; their creation; and the relationship between sculptor and model. It also examines how the sculptor’s work developed from the first take in 1931 to later versions of portraits.

Keywords

• Oscar Nemon
• Sigmund Freud
• portrait
• sculpture
• modernism