Jane McAdam Freud

Jane McAdam Freud (24 February 1958 – 9 August 2022) was a British conceptual sculptor working in installation art and digital media.

After completing a Foundation course at Wimbledon College of Art, McAdam Freud studied Mosaics in Ravenna from 1977 to 1978, returning to London to study at the Central School of Art and Design and at the Royal College of Art under the supervision of John Stezaker and Eduardo Paolozzi.

In 1986 McAdam Freud won the British Art Medal Scholarship in Rome where she studied sculpture at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Roma under Gino Marotta and at the Scuola d'Arte della Medaglia in Rome.

McAdam Freud was an associate lecturer at Central Saint Martins and taught short courses in the Sculpture School at Morley College.

She has also taught at the Royal College of Art, London and at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts, Antwerp.

McAdam Freud was a Fellow of the Royal British Society of Sculptors.

In 1991 she was awarded the Italian State Mint prize for her work Moments and Memories.

Her winning design was put into production by the Istituto Poligrafico e Zecca dello Stato.

In the same year she was granted the Freedom of the City of London.

She has published several catalogues including; On the Edge 1996, Relative Relations 2006 and numerous papers on Art and Psychoanalysis.

McAdam Freud's short film Dead or Alive refers to Freud's concept of Condensation.

The pairings morph into each other through the merging back and forth of Freud's antiquities with her sculpture, from past to present ‘virtually’ closing the gap of time.

Great similarities can be found in the forms and motifs of the pairs.

At a midway point the two objects merge and form a third image of a ‘virtual’ object.

Her preference for this work was to locate it within reach of a psychoanalytically aware audience.

Dead or Alive was shown internationally at museums, institutes and galleries including Philoctetes Centre for the Imagination, NY, New York USA in 2008, Lung Yingtai Cultural Foundation, (Media Tek Lectures) Taipei, Taiwan and the Kosciuszko Foundation, NYC, USA in 2009.

Also the Sundaram Tagore Gallery, LA, USA in 2010 and Whitelabs Gallery, Milan in 2012.

Her works are represented in both national and international public collections including the British Museum, the Victoria and Albert Museum, National Gallery Archives, London, the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford and the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge.

International collections include the Brooklyn Museum, The National Arts Club, Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh, the Greek National Gallery, and the Berlin State Museums.

McAdam Freud lived in northwest London at the time of her death, and was married to architect Peter Henson.

She died on 9 August 2022, aged 64; no cause was given.

She was the winner of the 2014 European Trebbia Awards for artistic achievement.

McAdam Freud was born in London to Katherine Margaret McAdam and Lucian Freud, and was the great-granddaughter of Sigmund Freud.

Her career began with a solo show at the age of 18, curated by her art teachers at Putney College, which is now part of South Thames College.

The most recent screening venues are·· the Wooyang Museum of Contemporary Art in 2015–16 and at NYU, New York USA in March 2017.