Nemon with Freud and Jofi: Oscar Nemon and Sigmund Freud met in Vienna in 1931 after a mutual acquaintance, Paul Federn, commissioned Nemon to sculpt a bust of the famed psychoanalyst. Despite refusing to be sculpted for twenty-five years, Freud sat for several brief garden meetings in between patients. By the time three busts were completed, Nemon had won the reserved psychoanalyst over with his talent and emotive style.

Freud and Freud: ‘The first person to see the finished sculpture was Freud’s maid Paola who exclaimed, “Oh, doesn’t the Professor look cross!“ When Nemon told Freud what his first critic had made of the bust, Freud retorted, “Oh, but I am angry. I am angry with humanity!”’ Finding Nemon, p. 64. (Photo courtesy of the Nemon Estate)

Unfinished Work: Nemon’s reputation grew with the sculpture of Freud, and he was commissioned to unveil a full-body bronze statue in Vienna in 1936, in honour of Freud’s 80th birthday. However, these plans never actualized, and in 1938 Freud fled Vienna altogether. Nemon’s plaster cast for the project languished in his London studio for several years. Here, the sculptor mirrors the posture of his creation, in 1969. (Photo courtesy of Falcon Stuart)

Freud in Hampstead: In the late 1960s, president of the British Psychoanalysis Society Donald Winnicott decided to resurrect Nemon’s project, but in London. Nemon worked closely with Winnicott, and the two became friends. In October 1970, Freud’s daughter Anna unveiled the bronze, larger-than-life statue to the best and brightest of the psychoanalytic world. The work remains in Hampstead to this day. (Photo courtesy of Clive Robinson)

Return of a Mummy: As the successor to Freud’s academic workplace during his time in Vienna, the Medical University honoured one of its most significant thinkers by commissioning a recasting of Nemon’s Hampstead statue. Pictured here is his likeness under wraps after descending via crane onto the University campus, for the eightieth anniversary of Freud’s flight. (Photo courtesy of Alice Hiller)

In Memory of Sigmund Freud: Guests of the accompanying symposium attended an unveiling ceremony, a series of talks, including one given by Nemon’s daughter and biographer Aurelia Young, and a commemorative reading. Together, Freud and Nemon quietly returned to the place they had both called home. Pictured with the Freud statue, from left to right: Leigh Turner, UK ambassador to Austria; Lady Aurelia Young, daughter of Oscar Nemon; David Freud, grandson of Sigmund Freud; Alice Hiller, daughter-in-law of Nemon, Electra May, daughter of Nemon, and Markus Müller, rector of Medical University Vienna. (Photo courtesy of Clive Robinson)