Life and Family
Grete was the youngest child in the Lehner family. Her father was a profitable manufacturer and her mother was the "perfect hostess."
One of the main couples of the "second generation" of Freudian thought, Grete and Edward meet and married while attending medical school at the University of Vienna in the early 1920's.
The mother-son portrait was most likely taken by the family photographer, Edward Bibring.
Dr. Bibring kept close correspondence with her sons George and Thomas while they attended school. She saved many of the letters and drawings that they sent throughout her lifetime.
In 1959 Edward Bibring passed away from Parkinson’s disease. Many in the psychoanalytical and medical communities provided Grete with support and compassion.
Grete Bibring kept detailed notes on all of her dinners, teas, and other social gatherings she hosted. Included in these notes were dates, attending guests, menus and recipes. Dr. Bibring began to expand her culinary talents as a way to deal with the growing tension in Vienna at the beginning of the Nazi regime.
Although she maintained a modern life style and philosophy, Dr. Bibring’s values were rooted in her old world Viennese upbringing.