Published: 3 February, 2012
by PAVAN AMARA

LUCIAN Freud’s daughter has unveiled a sculpture dedicated to the great artist, explaining how creating the piece was a way of coming to terms with her grief over his death.

Jane McAdam Freud began working on what has become the centrepiece of a new exhibition after her artist father died in July last year.

It can be seen at the Freud Museum in  Hampstead.

Ms McAdam Freud, 53, told the West End Extra: “I did it as a way of coping with my grief. A friend said I should get the work out.

“It all put pressure on me to find somewhere to have it shown, and this was the perfect place.

“I suppose I never took on board how popular he was so, when I see how many people are visiting here, it’s still a bit of a surprise.”

She grew up as one of four children with her father and designer mother Katherine McAdam in Maida Vale, until the family split when she was eight. Ms McAdam Freud moved to Paddington and didn’t see her father again until she was 31.

Ms McAdam Freud, who now lives with her husband and two adult children, studied at Central St Martins and then the Royal College of Art before earning a masters degree, and taking on scholarships at art schools around the world.

“My father was a mythological creature himself,” said Ms McAdam Freud, who is the great-grand-daughter of Sigmund Freud.

“He first sat with me in 1991 and I sculpted him then, but this time, after losing him it was very different.

“My dad always used to say to me, ‘My dear Jane, I don’t want to be a burden on you’.

“But I would have loved for him to be more of a burden on me. He was well known, but he didn’t want that to affect my choices, and he was aware that it could have done.

“He let me be very free. He had a belief that the more your parents leave you to it, the more character a person has. He felt the more your parents involve themselves the more a person loses their individuality. He didn’t want me to lose mine.”

Ms McAdam Freud said the 3ft terracotta clay piece, called Earthstone Triptych, looks “cobra-like” when perched on a viewing stool that is sat beside the sculpture.

“To me the cobra sums up my father,” she said, “because it sums up passion, libido, energy, all those things he was about.

“I’m so grateful to this museum, I’m grateful it’s here and to the people who work here.

“In some ways Hampstead has been a home away from home because of this place.”