Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) - photo 1

Sigmund Freud (1856-1939)

Lot 286
15.12.2023 11:00UTC +00:00
Classic
Starting price
£ 100
AuctioneerCHRISTIE'S
Event locationUnited Kingdom, London
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ID 1109086
Lot 286 | Sigmund Freud (1856-1939)
Estimate value
£ 4 000 – 6 000
Sigmund Freud (1856-1939)
Autograph letter signed ('Freud') to [Dr Franz Alexander], Berggasse 19, Vienna, 19 March 1933
In German. Two pages, 230 x 145mm, on cream paper. Provenance: Sotheby's, 6 May 1981, lot 46.

'Hold on to your optimism and use it as the engine that drives your work': on the foundation of a new institute, a 'stupid and malicious' attack from an old acquaintance, and the threat from 'barbarous Hitlerism'. Freud is happy to hear news from Alexander of his recently-founded Chicago Institute for Psychoanalysis: 'It's good of you to keep me up to date with what's going on in your young institute. It is even better that as a young and strong man you hold on to your optimism and use it as the engine that drives your work'. He cautions Alexander against setting himself a goal of ensuring the reception of psychoanalysis into the organisation of the university: 'It is not worth the effort: at a later point, it will come of its own accord'. A few days previously, Bernard Sachs had sent Freud his 'stupid and malicious' article, 'The false claims of the Psychoanalyst' (published in The American Journal of Insanity, January 1933). Freud recalls that he worked with Sachs in 1882: 'he was then woolly-haired and very nice, neither apparently any longer now'. He mentions the work of his son Martin in reorganising the Internationaler Psychoanalytischer Verlag, before wondering gloomily: 'What will we do if the barbarous Hitlerism in Germany locks us out of the market?'

Franz Alexander (1891-1964) was associated with the Berlin Psychoanalytical Institute from 1921-1930, during which period he analysed Freud's third son, Oliver; from 1930 his career was essentially based in Chicago, initially as Visiting Professor of Psychoanalysis at the University of Chicago, and from 1932 as the founder of the Chicago Institute for Psychoanalysis.
Artist:Sigmund Freud (1856 - 1939)
Place of origin:Austria
Auction house category:Medicine & science
Address of auction CHRISTIE'S
8 King Street, St. James's
SW1Y 6QT London
United Kingdom
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