The Gods of Freud: Sigmund Freud's Art Collection

by Janine Burke

A stunning and surprising re-evaluation of Freud’s life and legacy told through his extraordinary art collection.Janine Burke, award-winning author and art historian, reveals an intriguing new perspective on sigmund Freud - as an obsessive artcollector; a passionate and reckless man intent on surrounding himself with beautiful objects.Sigmund Freud's collection of Egyptian, Greek and Roman antiquities must be one of the world's best-kept secrets. Over a 40-year period he amassed an extraordinary array of nearly three thousand statues, vases, reliefs, busts,fragments of papyrus, rings, precious stones and prints. For Freud, psychoanalysis and his art collection developed together in a symbiotic relationship, each informing and enriching the other.To create a portrait of Freud the art collector, Janine Burke builds a vibrant, richly detailed and intimate image of his life and times, set against the glittering, decadent background of fin-de-siècle Vienna where an artistic flowering took place in painting, theatre, writing and architecture.

455 pages, Hardcover

First published September 28, 2011

About the author

Dr. Janine Burke is an art historian and biographer, and has written eight books of fiction and art history. She has degrees from the University of Melbourne and La Trobe University. She was a lecturer in art history until she resigned from her job to become a full-time writer, which she has been for the last ten years.

Her books include Australian Women Artists, 1840-1940, Second Sight, which won the 1987 Victorian Premier's Award for Fiction, and Company of Images, which was shortlisted for The Age Book of the Year award and the Miles Franklin Award. Her novel for teenagers, Journey to Bright Water, is published by Mammoth. She also contributed to Libby Hawthorn's anthology of short stories, The Blue Dress.

Janine has curated exhibitions of historical and contemporary art, and currently holds a research fellowship at Monash University. She lives in Melbourne, where she regularly reviews, lectures and broadcasts on radio.