Füreya Koral (June 2, 1910 – August 25, 1997) was a pioneering

ceramics A ceramic is any of the various hard, brittle, heat-resistant and corrosion-resistant materials made by shaping and then firing an inorganic, nonmetallic material, such as clay, at a high temperature. Common examples are earthenware, porcelain ...

artist born into a prominent artistic family in Turkey. Known for her wall panels, Koral worked in a variety of media such as

tile Tiles are usually thin, square or rectangular coverings manufactured from hard-wearing material such as ceramic, stone, metal, baked clay, or even glass. They are generally fixed in place in an array to cover roofs, floors, walls, edges, or o ...

s and statuettes, and also created ceramic-inlaid tables and stools . She started working on ceramics after she was diagnosed with

tuberculosis Tuberculosis (TB) is an infectious disease usually caused by '' Mycobacterium tuberculosis'' (MTB) bacteria. Tuberculosis generally affects the lungs, but it can also affect other parts of the body. Most infections show no symptoms, i ...

while receiving treatment at a sanatorium in Switzerland. A self-taught artist, her works were mostly ignored during her lifetime although she did create wood-and-ceramic furnishings for the new National Assembly Building in

Ankara Ankara ( , ; ), historically known as Ancyra and Angora, is the capital of Turkey. Located in the central part of Anatolia, the city has a population of 5.1 million in its urban center and over 5.7 million in Ankara Province, maki ...

. Seeking to push the limits of ceramics beyond its function, she was inspired by the art of the ancient civilisations of Turkey, Mexico and East Asia, especially Japan, and her work often combines elements taken from both Western and Eastern artistic traditions. She signed her works with the anglicised version of her given name, Fureya.

Early life

Füreya Koral was born on

Büyükada Büyükada ( el, Πρίγκηπος or Πρίγκιπος, rendered ''Prinkipos'' or ''Prinkipo''), meaning "Big Island" in Turkish, is the largest of the Princes' Islands in the Sea of Marmara, near Istanbul, with an area of about . It is offic ...

Istanbul ) , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = 34000 to 34990 , area_code = +90 212 (European side) +90 216 (Asian side) , registration_plate = 34 , blank_name_sec2 = GeoTLD , blank_i ...

. Her father was Emin Paşa, a notable soldier and statesman in the

Ottoman Empire The Ottoman Empire, * ; is an archaic version. The definite article forms and were synonymous * and el, Оθωμανική Αυτοκρατορία, Othōmanikē Avtokratoria, label=none * info page on book at Martin Luther University) ...

and then a companion to Atatürk, her mother was Hakkiye Hanım and her grandfather was Mehmed Şakır Paşa, an Ottoman statesman and historian. Like her aunts

Fahrelnissa Zeid Fahrelnissa Zeid (, ''Fakhr un-nisa'' or ''Fahr-El-Nissa''; 7 January 1901 – 5 September 1991) was a Turkish artist best known for her large-scale abstract paintings with kaleidoscopic patterns as well as her drawings, lithographs, and sculp ...

Aliye Berger Aliye Berger (24 December 1903 – 9 August 1974) was a Turkish artist, engraver, and painter. Berger is one of the first engravers of Turkish Republic. She is known for her expressionist engravings and winning the painting competition of Yapı ...

and Ayşe Erdem, and her uncle

Cevat Şakir Kabaağaçlı Cevat Şakir Kabaağaçlı (17 April 1890 – 13 October 1973; born Musa Cevat Şakir; pen-name "The Fisherman of Halicarnassus", tr, Halikarnas Balıkçısı) was a Cretan Turkish writer of novels, short-stories and essays, as well as a ke ...

(the Fisherman of Halicarnassus), Koral was an enthusiast for music, painting and literature. She studied at the Lycée Notre Dame de Sion in Istanbul and received a diploma from a private Jewish High School in 1928. She then enrolled at the Department of Philosophy at the Istanbul University Faculty of Literature in 1929 but her father's illness and mandatory retirement forced her to quit university before graduating as the family's financial situation deteriorated. In 1930, she moved to Bursa after marrying a farm owner named Selahattin Karacabey. The couple divorced in 1932 and in 1935 she remarried to Kılıç Ali, a close friend of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. After Atatürk's death, the couple moved back to Istanbul. Immediately after helping her aunt, artist

, open her first solo exhibition in her home at the Ralli Apartment Block in 1945, Füreya was diagnosed with

. She started treatment at the [tasis) Sanatorium in Switzerland, where she took painting lessons from a Polish artist.

Artistic career

1947–1954

While in Switzerland Füreya began to experiment with ceramics using materials sent to her by her aunts Fahrelnissa Zeid and Aliye Berger. In 1949, she attended a ceramics workshop in Lausanne. In 1950, she moved to Paris to resume treatment for TB and there she crossed paths with the ceramics artist Georges Serré (1889–1956) and, on his advice, began working on firing techniques at a workshop outside Paris. She also met the art critics Jacques Lassaigne and Charles Estienne who advised her to stage an exhibition. Her first solo exhibition opened at Galerie M.A.I. in Paris and was followed by a solo exhibition in Turkey at the Maya Gallery founded by Adalet Cimcoz. This exhibition featured wall ceramics inspired by the ''çini'' (tile) tradition and other works that treated folkloric themes. She returned to Istanbul in 1953 and established one of the first private ceramic studios in Turkey at the El Irak apartment building on Cumhuriyet Caddesi in Harbiye where she lived with her husband.

1954–1980

After divorcing Kılıç Ali in 1954, Füreya moved her home and studio to the ground floor of the Şakir Pasha apartment building. In the 1950s this studio became a meeting place for young ceramic artists, including Ayda Arel, Alev Ebüzziya Siesbye and Leyla Sayar (Akkoyunlu), as well as Bingül Başarır, Candeğer Furtun, Binay Kaya, and Mehmet Tüzüm Kızılcan. It was also a gathering point for figures from the world of arts and culture of the period, including prominent writers such as

Melih Cevdet Anday Melih Cevdet Anday (13 March 1915 – 28 November 2002) was a Turkish writer whose poetry stands outside the traditional literary movements. He also wrote in many other genres which, over six and a half decades, included eleven collections of p ...

, Azra Erhat,

Sabahattin Eyüboğlu Sabahattin Eyüboğlu (1908 – January 13, 1973) was a Turkish writer, essayist, translator and film producer. Biography Sabahatttin Eyüboğlu was born in 1908 on the Black Sea coast town of Akçaabat near Trabzon. His father Mehmet Rah ...

, Vedat Günyol,

Yaşar Kemal Yaşar Kemal (born Kemal Sadık Gökçeli; 6 October 1923 – 28 February 2015) was a Turkish writer and human rights activist and one of Turkey's leading writers. He received 38 awards during his lifetime and had been a candidate for the Nobe ...

(her uncle) and Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar. In 1957, Füreya received a Rockefeller grant to study in the US, and then continued on to

Mexico Mexico (Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guatema ...

to carry out research on the

Aztec The Aztecs () were a Mesoamerican culture that flourished in central Mexico in the post-classic period from 1300 to 1521. The Aztec people included different ethnic groups of central Mexico, particularly those groups who spoke the Nahuatl ...

and

Mayan Mayan most commonly refers to: * Maya peoples, various indigenous peoples of Mesoamerica and northern Central America * Maya civilization, pre-Columbian culture of Mesoamerica and northern Central America * Mayan languages, language family spoken ...

cultures. Encountering Mexico's widespread mural tradition reinforced her belief that art should not be trapped in museums and paved the way for the large panels she would go on to make for public spaces. After returning to Istanbul in 1958, Füreya designed ceramic coffee cups for the Pavilion of Turkey at the Expo '58

Brussels World Fair Expo 58, also known as the 1958 Brussels World's Fair (french: Exposition Universelle et Internationale de Bruxelles de 1958, nl, Brusselse Wereldtentoonstelling van 1958), was a world's fair held on the Heysel/Heizel Plateau in Brussels, Bel ...

. She also continued her collaborations with architects, ranging from Utarit Izgi to Haluk Baysal, Melih Birsel, Abdurrahman Hancı, and Selçuk Milâr. She created large-scale panels for the Marmara Hotel in the grounds of the Atatürk Forest Farm in Ankara in 1959; for the

Hacettepe University Hacettepe University is a leading state university in Ankara, Turkey. It was established on 8 July 1967. It is ranked first among the Turkish universities by URAP in 2021. The university has two main campuses. The first campus is in the old t ...

Faculty of Medicine in 1965; for

Ziraat Bank Ziraat Bankası is a state-owned bank in Turkey founded in 1863. Offers commercial loan support to companies and tradesmen, as well as personal loans such as consumer loans, vehicle loans and housing loans. History During the first half of the 1 ...

, Başak Insurance, and the Istanbul Textile Traders’ Market (Manifaturacılar Çarşısı) in 1966; for the Anafartalar Market in 1967; and for the Divan Hotel in 1968. In 1860–61, Füreya was invited to provide a series of ceramic-inlaid coffee tables and stools to furnish the new National Assembly Building in Ankara. In the 1970s, she focused on designing objects using the

stoneware Stoneware is a rather broad term for pottery or other ceramics fired at a relatively high temperature. A modern technical definition is a vitreous or semi-vitreous ceramic made primarily from stoneware clay or non-refractory fire clay. Whether vi ...

technique and created an exclusive series for the Istanbul Porcelain Factory in

Tuzla Tuzla (, ) is the third-largest city of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the administrative center of Tuzla Canton of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina. As of 2013, it has a population of 110,979 inhabitants. Tuzla is the economic, cultural, e ...

in 1973. The same year, her works were exhibited at Yapı Endüstri Merkezi uilding Industry Centre

1980–1997

Füreya became Chair of the Ceramicists Association founded in 1980. However it was shut down under martial law following the 1980 coup d'état. She produced a series called ''Houses''—one of her best known works based on the row houses she could see from the Arif Paşa apartment building—between 1980 and 1985; exhibited at

Maçka Maçka ( el, Ματζούκα, Matzoúka, the "club"; Laz language, Laz: მაჩხა ''Maçxa'') is a town and district of Trabzon Province in the Black Sea Region, Turkey, Black Sea region of Turkey. The name derives from the medieval Greek ...

Art Gallery in Istanbul in 1985, these works were later awarded the

Sedat Simavi Sedat Simavi (1896 – 11 December 1953) was a Turkish journalist, writer and film director. He established many newspapers and magazines. Biography Simavi was born in 1896. His grandfather and uncles served in different positions in the of ...

Visual Arts Prize. In 1990, she exhibited

terracotta Terracotta, terra cotta, or terra-cotta (; ; ), in its material sense as an earthenware substrate, is a clay-based unglazed or glazed ceramic where the fired body is porous. In applied art, craft, construction, and architecture, terracotta ...

figurines titled ''Walking People'' alongside works by forty artists who joined the exhibition ''With Respect to Fureya Koral on her 40th Year in Art,'' organised by Maçka Art Gallery''.'' Füreya Koral died on 25 August 1997.

Exhibitions

". . . For me ceramic art, first of all is like a tool, or a book, or music. A tool to express the world, to make my own world come alive, a tool that makes living and sharing possible. I mean ceramics are not just decorative items or objects of consumption." (Füreya Koral, from her interview with Zeynep Oral, published in ''Milliyet Sanat'' on February 15, 1993)

Füreya participated in exhibitions at numerous galleries and institutions, including Salon d'Octobre, Paris; the

Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, and is often identified as one of ...

, Mexico City; Naprstkovo Museum,

Prague Prague ( ; cs, Praha ; german: Prag, ; la, Praga) is the capital and List of cities in the Czech Republic, largest city in the Czech Republic, and the historical capital of Bohemia. On the Vltava river, Prague is home to about 1.3 milli ...

; and the

Smithsonian Institution The Smithsonian Institution ( ), or simply the Smithsonian, is a group of museums and education and research centers, the largest such complex in the world, created by the U.S. government "for the increase and diffusion of knowledge". Founded ...

Washington, D.C. ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...

Opened in the fall of 2017, a posthumous retrospective of her work included over 200 pieces, presented alongside archival materials such as letters and photographs. Organised by Károly Aliotti, Nilüfer Şaşmazer and Farah Aksoy, the exhibition aimed to present a comprehensive study of her work, which has, perhaps, been overshadowed by her gender and her family's important role in late Ottoman and early Turkish history. In June 2022 some of Füreya's coffee tables and stools from Turkey's Grand National Assembly Art Collection (Türkiye Büyük Millet Meclisi Sanat Koleksiyonu) were shown in the new

Galataport Galataport is a mixed-use development located along of shore in the Karaköy neighbourhood of Istanbul, Turkey on the European shore of the Bosporus strait near its confluence with the Golden Horn right in the heart of the city. It includes the ...

cruise terminal in

Karaköy Karaköy (), the modern name for the old Galata, is a commercial quarter in the Beyoğlu district of Istanbul, Turkey, located at the northern part of the Golden Horn mouth on the European side of Bosphorus. Karaköy is one of the oldest an ...

as part of the Beyoğlu Cultural Road festival alongside family photographs and memorabilia and copies of photographs of the artist taken by

Ara Güler Ara Güler ( hy, Արա ԿիւլԷր; 16 August 1928 – 17 October 2018) was an Armenian-Turkish photojournalist, nicknamed "the Eye of Istanbul" or "the Photographer of Istanbul". He was "one of Turkey's few internationally known photographers ...

Culture

Ayşe Kulin Ayşe Kulin (born 26 August 1941) is a Turkish short story writer, screenwriter and novelist. Biography Kulin was born in Istanbul in 1941. Her father, Muhittin Kulin, of Bosniak origin, was one of the first civil engineers in Istanbul who f ...

's novel ''Füreya'', published in 2005, tells the ceramicist's story in fictional form.