Jane McAdam Freud (1958-2022)
Dr Dora Thornton, Curator of the Goldsmiths' Company, celebrates the art medals of Jane McAdam Freud in the Company Collection
We were sad to hear of the recent death of the artist, medallist and sculptor Jane McAdam Freud, a Freeman of the Goldsmiths’ Company. The daughter of the famous artist, Lucian Freud, McAdam Freud won joint First Prize in a competition for the Royal Society of Arts medal in 1980 while still a student at the Central School. She recalled: “The first medal I ever made was in the shape of the portrait of Picasso with its reverse following the form of his muse: one medal, two subjects.” Rosemary Ransome Wallis, then the Company’s Curator, immediately snapped up an example for our Collection of art medals [Fig.1]. It was the beginning of a close creative relationship. In 1989 we sponsored her, with the Royal Mint, for the British Art Medal scholarship to Rome. In 1990, she was specially commissioned to make the first in our innovative series of portrait medals of successive Prime Wardens. McAdam’s subtle cast silver medal of Sir Hugh Huntington-Whiteley [Fig.2] shows him gazing directly at the viewer on the front and, on the reverse, a view of the Livery Hall filled with scaffolding, referring to his refurbishment of the Hall during his year as Prime Warden. Her second Prime Warden medal from 2011 [Fig.3] is completely different, taking the form of a half-length bust of the silversmith Grant MacDonald which stands on its edge. The back of the subject’s head is inscribed “My dreams locked in silver”; a reference to the making process. Her third medal from 2017 presents William Parente [Fig.4] against a curved background which the artist wanted to work as a “life lens”, showing how his face changes when viewed from different angles.
There is a poetic intensity of vision to all her work. Heads and Tails from 2001 [Fig.5] suggests the survival of our planet is a gamble, like tossing a coin. A crushed coke can seems to have grown a snake's skin; the tail of the serpent on the reverse alludes to the temptation of Eve-- all of it rendered with a superb sense of texture and aliveness.
Deeply personal is the uncompromising portrait of her father, Lucian Freud, which, she said, kept him alive for her. [Fig.6] It was only in his final weeks in 2012 that he allowed her to draw him as his daughter and fellow artist. “Art was at the centre of his world, and on one side of the medal Art is revealed at the Centre of the word EARTH.” This unique silver medal, commissioned by the Company, meditates not only on the relationship between a woman and her father, but between two artists who specialise in portraits.
We will display a selection of art medals in Spring 2023 to mark the fact that we have been awarded the President’s Medal of the British Art Medal Society in recognition of our support for the art of the contemporary medal, in which Jane McAdam Freud played such a significant role.
fig.1 - Jane McAdam Freud, Pablo Picasso, medal in cast bronze, 1983 [front and back]
fig.2 - Jane McAdam Freud, Hugo Huntington-Whiteley, Prime Warden’s medal in cast and partly oxidised silver, 1990 [front and back]
fig.3 - Jane McAdam Freud, Grant Macdonald, Prime Warden’s medal in cast sterling silver, 2011 [front and back], the back inscribed “My dreams locked in silver” the words of Grant Macdonald.
fig.4 - Jane McAdam Freud, William Parente, Prime Warden’s medal in cast Britannia patinated silver, 2017. [front and back]. The quotation on the back is from "Motto to the 'Svendborg Poems' " [Motto der 'Svendborger Gedichte'], 1939, by Bertolt Brecht, as selected by William Parente for his medal
fig.5 - Jane McAdam Freud, Heads and Tails, medal in cast patinated bronze, 2001 [front and back]
fig.6 - Jane McAdam Freud, Lucian Freud, medal in cast sterling silver, 2012 [front and back], inscribed EARTH on the back