Tom Seidmann-Freud

Tom Seidmann-Freud (17 November 1892 – 7 February 1930) was an Austrian-Jewish painter, children's book author and illustrator.

Biography

Martha Gertrud Freud (later Tom Seidmann-Freud) was born in Vienna to Marie 'Mitzi' Freud, sister of psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud and her cousin and husband Maurice (Moritz) Freud. In 1898 the family moved to Berlin, where her father ran an import business. Seidmann-Freud had an older sister, Lily Freud, later Lily Marlé. Her younger brother Theodor drowned in Mäckersee, north of Berlin, in 1922. From the age of 15, she used the name Tom. In 1911, she moved to London to attend art school.

Art career Seidmann-Freud created Art Nouveau picture books. Her first successes were in 1914. When she returned to Berlin she studied in the School of applied Arts working with wood, stone and copper and experimenting with graphic design, drawing and decorative painting. She remained in Berlin throughout the First World War.

After her death

As Germany moved towards war and the situation became more dangerous for Jews, Seidmann-Freud's daughter, adopted by Lily and her husband Arnold Marlé was sent as part of a child transport to Palestine in 1938. There she took the Hebrew name Aviva where she had children herself and died in May 2011. Mitzi Freud was transported to Treblinka in 1942, where she was murdered in the Holocaust. Many of Seidmann-Freud's books were burned during that time.