Tom Seidmann-Freud

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Illustration from Die Fischreise , Peregrin-Verlag, Berlin 1923
Game primer: Hurray, we're reading (1930)

Tom Seidmann-Freud (born November 17, 1892 in Vienna , Austria-Hungary ; died February 7, 1930 in Berlin ) was an Austrian painter, children's book author and illustrator.

Life

Tom Seidmann-Freud was born as Martha Gertrud Freud . Her mother Maria (Mitzi) Freud was a sister of the psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud . From 1898 the family lived in Berlin , where their father Maurice (Moritz) ran an import business. At the age of 15, she took the male first name Tom and called herself Tom Freud . After finishing school, she attended an art school in London and devoted herself to art nouveau picture books . The first successes came from 1914 with own publications.

From 1918 to 1920 she lived in Munich. In 1920 she met the writer Jakob (Jankew) Seidmann. The two married and had their daughter Angela (Awiwa) in 1922, who was rescued in 1938 on a children's transport to Palestine . The couple worked together intensively. They founded the Peregrin publishing house, which dealt with religious topics specifically for the East Jewish immigrants. In 1923 Tom Seidmann-Freud's original picture book "Die Fischreise" was also published here.

In addition to picture books, Tom Seidmann-Freud also designed play and transformation books for children: "Das Wunderhaus" (1927) and "Das Zauberboot" (1929). Four game primers followed in 1930; they were not school primers , but were aimed at children who were to be encouraged to read and write before and after school. Since the writing tasks were set in Sütterlin script , the distribution of the reprint from 1949 was limited.

During the Great Depression in the autumn of 1929, the publisher went bankrupt, and Jankew silk man took his own life. Tom Seidmann-Freud then fell ill with severe depression from which she did not recover. On February 7, 1930, she died of a sleeping pill overdose . She was buried next to her husband in the Jewish cemetery in Berlin-Weißensee . Her mother Marie was deported from Vienna to Treblinka in 1942, where she was a victim of the Holocaust .

Works (selection)

Seidmann-Freud Weissensee grave
  • The baby songbook . Pictures and verses by Tom Freud. Berlin: Reuss & Pollack 1914.
  • The new picture book . From Tom Freud. Text by Stora Max. Munich: Georg W. Dietrich Hofverleger 1918.
  • David the Dreamer. His Book of Dreams . By Ralph Bergengren. Illustrated by Tom Freud. Boston: The Atlantic Monthly Press 1922.
  • The book of things . A picture book for very young children by Tom Seidman-Freud. Berlin: Mauritius 1922.
  • The fish trip . A picture book by Tom Seidmann-Freud. Berlin: Peregrin 1923.
    • Peregrin and the Goldfish . A picturebook by Tom Seidmann-Freud. New York: The Macmillan Comp. 1929.
  • Book of rabbit stories . A picture book by Tom Seidmann-Freud. Berlin: Peregrin 1924.
  • The miracle house . A picture book for turning, moving and transforming by Tom Seidmann-Freud. Berlin: Herbert Stuffer 1927/1929/1931.
  • The magic boat . By Tom Seidmann-Freud. A picture book to turn, move and transform (Das neue Wunderhaus). Berlin: Herbert Stuffer 1929/1930/1935.
    • The magic boat . By Tom Seidmann-Freud. A book to turn, move and alter. Berlin: Herbert Stuffer 1935.
  • Book of wishes fulfilled . A picture book by Tom Seidmann-Freud. Potsdam: Müller & Kiepenheuer 1929.
  • Hurray, we read! Hurray, we're writing! A game primer by Tom Seidmann-Freud. [Game Primer No. 1] Berlin: Herbert Stuffer 1930/1932/1934/1949.
  • Game primer No. 2 . By Tom Seidmann-Freud. Berlin: Herbert Stuffer 1931.
  • Hooray, we do the math! Game Guide No. 3 by Tom Seidmann-Freud. Berlin: Herbert Stuffer 1931/1946.
  • Hurray, we keep calculating! Game Guide No. 4 by Tom Seidmann-Freud. Berlin: Herbert Stuffer 1932.
  • David the Dreamer. His Book of Dreams . By Ralph Bergengren. Illustrated by Tom Freud. First Hebrew Edition, Translated by Eyal Levin, with Essay by Yakir Segev, Tel Aviv: Hanina Gallery, 2020.

Her best-known work is the picture book “Die Fischreise” from 1923. The illustrations show stylistic elements of New Objectivity and Expressionism and are of extraordinary clarity and beauty. A boy's dream is portrayed: Peregrin dreams. Peregrin is the foreigner, the foreigner, the second-class citizen. Peregrin dreams of a fish that will take him into a dream world. “The fish says: Come with me, the world is wide and there are many banks!” Peregrin ends up in a heavenly dream world in which everything is as it should be: “This country is the best I can think of "The days are festivals, the world is very flat there, and it is bright to live from now on and always!"

Reprints

Some of her books have been published in English, Russian, Dutch, and Hebrew. The following reprints have recently appeared:

literature

  • Barbara Murken : Tom Seidmann-Freud. Life and work . In: The slate. Vol. IV (1981), H. 3, pp. 163-201.
  • Barbara Murken: "... the world is so uneven ..." - Tom Seidmann-Freud (1892–1930). Life and work of a great picture book artist . In: Lucifer-Amor: Journal for the history of psychoanalysis. Focus on the Freud family. Tübingen: edition diskord 2004, issue 33, pp. 73-103.
  • Dietmar Strauch: Tom Seidmann-Freud (1892–1930). Artist, illustrator, children's book author . In: Adagio - Feld O. Biographical research at the Jewish cemetery in Berlin-Weißensee. Berlin: edition progris 2009, pp. 102-105.
  • Seidmann-Freud, Tom. In: Lexicon of German-Jewish Authors . Volume 19: Sand – Stri. Edited by the Bibliographia Judaica archive. De Gruyter, Berlin a. a. 2012, ISBN 978-3-598-22699-1 .
  • Catrin Lorch: Free as a child. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung , August 26, 2017, p. 19

Web links

Commons : Tom Seidmann-Freud  - Album with pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Lucifer-Amor , volume 33 (17th year 2004): Freud family
  2. ↑ The publisher's editor Grete Fischer later spoke of tuberculosis as the cause of death. Grete Fischer: Servants, Brecht and others. Contemporaries in Prague, Berlin, London , Walter-Verlag, Olten 1966, p. 270.
personal data
SURNAME Seidmann-Freud, Tom
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Freud, Martha Gertrud
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian children's book author
DATE OF BIRTH November 17, 1892
PLACE OF BIRTH Vienna , Austria-Hungary
DATE OF DEATH February 7, 1930
Place of death Berlin