First Floor
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The Anna Freud Room depicts aspects of her work and character; the room contains some furniture from her study (including
her analytic couch) and a loom from her bedroom. Anna Freud was a keen weaver and a knitting enthusiast, this latter activity
being one which she practiced during analyses of patients. She was born in 1895, the sixth and youngest child of Sigmund and
Martha Freud. In 1914 she began training as a primary school teacher but in 1918 she also began training as a lay psychoanalyst
receiving her own analysis from her father. |
However, Anna Freud's short teaching career provided
a basis for her pioneering work in the field of child psychology: her
Introduction to the Technique of Child Analysis
was published in 1927 and her influential
The Ego and the Mechanisms of Defence appeared in 1936. From 1923 onwards
she also became her father's secretary and ambassador.
An exhibition in the room illustrates some aspects of Anna
Freud's life and work both in Vienna and in London, where she was assisted by Dorothy Burlingham, an analyst who lived at
20 Maresfield Gardens until her death in 1979.
Press for more detailed information on Anna Freud.
| The Landing features two portraits of Sigmund Freud, one by Ferdinand Schmutzer, the other by Salvador
Dali. Schmutzer's drawing was made in 1926. Freud praised the portrait, writing in a letter of thanks to Schmutzer that "it
gives me great pleasure and I should really thank you for the trouble you have taken in reproducing my ugly face, and I repeat
my assurance that only now do I feel myself preserved for posterity." |
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The Salvador Dali drawing was made in 1938. Stefan Zweig introduced the surrealist artist to Freud on 19 July
when Freud was living in 39 Elsworthy Road. During the encounter Dali executed a sketch surreptitiously and later made the
pen and ink drawing. Neither the sketch nor the drawing were shown to Freud because Zweig felt they conveyed Freud's imminent
death. |
