Oscar Nemon
Portrait of Sigmund Freud, 1938
bronze, cast
40 × 30 × 35 cm
MG-6984

Oscar Nemon - "Portrait of Sigmund Freud" (1938)
Freud's last portrait is the work of Oscar Nemon (1906 – 1985), a sculptor of Jewish origin from Osijek. Nemon studied at the Vienna Kunstgewerbeschule, was an active member of the Viennese social world in the 1920s, and was friends with representatives of the Vienna Secession. He moved into the circle of avant-garde artists such as Arnold Schönberg, Franz Marc, and Wassily Kandinsky. He graduated from the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Brussels, belonged to the circle of Belgian surrealists, and was friends with René Magritte.
The Association of Psychoanalysts in Vienna invited Nemon to make a portrait of Freud on his seventy-fifth birthday. Nemon met Freud in 1931. Agreeing to pose for the young artist was the beginning of a friendship connected, among other things, by Jewish origin. From 1931 to 1938, Nemon made a series of drawings, sketches, and studies of the sculptural portrait of Sigmund Freud during different phases of his life and work.
The 1938 portrait of Sigmund Freud, donated to the National Museum of Modern Art, is the culmination of this friendship and artistic exploration. Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis, tried to reveal the mysterious Other hidden from the insight of the conscious knower with his work. Nemon's interpretation of Freud's face reflects the depth of his mind and the complexity of psychoanalytic thought. The bust shows the external facial features and the spiritual complexity of one of the most influential thinkers of the modern era.

Text: Marta Radman, curator at the National Museum of Modern Art, Zagreb
Translated by: Marta Radman
Photo: Goran Vranić © National Museum of Modern Art, Zagreb