Biomedical subjects
Publications and source records attributed to Michael Molnar.
The paper presents a compact description of those resources of the Freud Museum most relevant for the Freud scholar: 1. the Archives with its collection of letters, documents, photos, and press cuttings from the 1920s and 1930s, as well as reproductions of paintings and photos of tourist features, compiled by Freud himself; 2. Freud's archaeological collection; 3. Freud's library.
The 1914 etching of Freud by Max Pollak differs from other portraits, firstly in that it shows him abstracted from the world and, secondly, because his antiquities are prominently featured. Links may be conjectured between his mood and such events of the time as the dispute with Jung and the Zurich group. Identification of the antiquities yields associations with aspects of Freud's working methods. An art work presents a different level of evidence from a photograph since intentionality plays a stronger role in it than structure. Consequently it throws more light on emotion than fact. The atmosphere of the etching prompts some reflections on representation and the uncanny. This article continues to argue the implicit case behind the author's preceding photograph studies: that iconography may provide a basis for writing history that can accomodate self-criticism and uncertainties.
Official documents and photographs are forms of alienation yet they carry imprints of the inner life of their subjects. An identity paper and photograph of the eighteen-year-old Anna Freud (August 1914) serves as the basis for an investigation of various aspects of her identity at the time - firstly her position in England as an "alien enemy"; secondly her emotional and sexual predicament, brought to light primarily through her father's response to Ernest Jones' supposed advances; and finally her own sense of self as deduced from the expression in the portrait, backed up by the evidence of her poetry.
Examination of an archive photograph of Angela Seidmann-Freud with her grandmother Maria (Mitzi) Freud leads to a consideraton of Tom Seidmann-Freud's work and fate. Circumstantial biographical events are related to the composition of the photograph. The events are a filter through which the photograph is viewed: the interaction between narrative and image has analogies in the educative strategies Tom developed in her children's books.