Fahrelnissa Zeid
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Princess Fahrelnissa Zeid (, ''Fakhr un-nisa'' or ''Fahr-El-Nissa'', born Fahrünissa Şakir (Kabaağaçlı); 6 December 1901 – 5 September 1991) was a Turkish artist best known for her large-scale
abstract paintings Abstract art uses visual language of shape, form, color and line to create a Composition (visual arts), composition which may exist with a degree of independence from visual references in the world. ''Abstract art'', ''non-figurative art'', ''non- ...
with kaleidoscopic patterns as well as her drawings,
lithographs Lithography () is a planographic method of printing originally based on the miscibility, immiscibility of oil and water. The printing is from a stone (lithographic limestone) or a metal plate with a smooth surface. It was invented in 1796 by ...
, and sculptures. Zeid was one of the first women to go to art school in Istanbul. She lived in different cities and became part of the avant-garde scenes in 1940s Istanbul, and post-war Paris, there becoming part of the new
School of Paris The School of Paris (, ) refers to the French and émigré artists who worked in Paris in the first half of the 20th century. The School of Paris was not a single art movement or institution, but refers to the importance of Paris as a centre o ...
. Her work has been exhibited at various institutions in Paris, New York, and London, including the Institute of Contemporary Art in 1954. In the 1970s, she moved to Amman, Jordan, where she established an art school. In 2017,
Tate Modern Tate Modern is an art gallery in London, housing the United Kingdom's national collection of international Modern art, modern and contemporary art (created from or after 1900). It forms part of the Tate group together with Tate Britain, Tate Live ...
in London organised a major retrospective and called her "one of the greatest female artists of the 20th century". Her largest work to be sold at auction, ''Towards a Sky'' (1953), went for just under one million pounds in 2017. Her record is the USD 2,741,000 sale of her Break of the Atom and Vegetal Life (1962) in 2013 by Christies. In 1920, Şakir married Izzet Devrim, with whom she had three children: Faruk, Nejad, and Şirin. Şakir divorced Devrim in 1934. The same year, she married
Prince Zeid bin Hussein Sir Zaid bin Hussein Al Hashimi (; (28 February 1898 – 18 October 1970) was an Iraqi prince who was a member of the Hashemite dynasty and the head of the Royal House of Iraq from 1958 until his death, after the royal line founded by his bro ...
, a member of the
Hashemite The Hashemites (), also House of Hashim, are the Dynasty, royal family of Jordan, which they have ruled since 1921, and were the royal family of the kingdoms of Kingdom of Hejaz, Hejaz (1916–1925), Arab Kingdom of Syria, Syria (1920), and Kingd ...
royal family of Iraq. They were the parents of
Prince Ra'ad bin Zeid A prince is a male ruler (ranked below a king, grand prince, and grand duke) or a male member of a monarch's or former monarch's family. ''Prince'' is also a title of nobility (often highest), often hereditary, in some European states. The fema ...
.


Biography


Early life

Fahrünissa Şakir was born in 1901 into the Ottoman Şakir Pasha family on the island of
Büyükada Büyükada (, 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 made up of the Maden and Nizam neighbourhoods in ...
in Istanbul. Her uncle Ahmed Javad Pasha served as the
Grand Vizier Grand vizier (; ; ) was the title of the effective head of government of many sovereign states in the Islamic world. It was first held by officials in the later Abbasid Caliphate. It was then held in the Ottoman Empire, the Mughal Empire, the Soko ...
of the Ottoman Empire from 1891 to 1895 and another uncle,
Cevat Çobanlı Cevat Çobanlı (14 September 1870Mesut Aydın, ''Türkiye ve Irak Hudûdu Mes'elesi'', Avrasya Stratejik Araştırmalar Merkezi Yayınları, 2001p. 53./ref> or 1871 – 13 March 1938) was a Turkish military commander of the Ottoman Army and a ...
, was a
World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...
hero. Fahrünissa's father,
Şakir Pasha Şakir () is a Turkish masculine given name and surname. Şakir or Sakir may refer to: Given name * Şakir Bayhan (1938–2019), Turkish lexicographer and forestry engineer * Şakir Bilgin (born 1951), Turkish-German writer * Şakir Deniz, stag ...
, was appointed ambassador to Greece, where he met her mother, Sara İsmet Hanım. In 1913, her father was fatally shot and her brother, Cevat Şakir Kabaağaçlı, was tried and convicted of his murder. Şakir began drawing and painting at a young age. Her earliest known surviving work is a portrait of her grandmother, painted when she was 14. In 1919, she enrolled at the Academy of Fine Arts for Women in Istanbul. In 1920 at the age of nineteen, Şakir married the novelist İzzet Melih Devrim. For their honeymoon, Devrim took Şakir to Venice where she was exposed to
European painting The history of Western painting represents a continuous, though disrupted, tradition from classical antiquity, antiquity until the present time. Until the mid-19th century it was primarily concerned with Representational art, representational ...
traditions for the first time. They had three children together. Her eldest son, Faruk (born 1921), died of
scarlet fever Scarlet fever, also known as scarlatina, is an infectious disease caused by ''Streptococcus pyogenes'', a Group A streptococcus (GAS). It most commonly affects children between five and 15 years of age. The signs and symptoms include a sore ...
in 1924. Her so
Nejad Devrim
(born 1923) went on to become a painter, and her daughter Şirin Devrim (born 1926) became an actress. Şakir travelled to Paris in 1928 and enrolled at the
Académie Ranson The Académie Ranson was a private art school founded in 1908 in Paris by the French painter Paul Ranson (1862–1909). History The Académie Ranson was founded in 1908 by Paul Ranson (1862–1909), who himself studied at the Académie Jul ...
, where she studied under the painter
Roger Bissière Roger Bissière (22 September 1886 – 2 December 1964) was a French visual artist and teacher. He designed stained glass windows for Metz cathedral and several other churches; as well as painted, and collaged textiles. Early life a ...
. Upon her return to Istanbul in 1929, she abandoned her academic figurative practice and turned towards expressionist figurativism, and enrolled at the Istanbul Academy of Fine Arts. Şakir's brother Cevat, better known as the Fisherman of Halicarnassus, was a novelist. Under her tutelage, her sister
Aliye Berger Aliye Berger (24 December 1903 – 9 August 1974) was a Turkish engraver and painter. She is one of the first engravers of Turkey. She is known for her expressionist engravings and winning the painting competition of Yapı Kredi Bank in 1954. ...
became a major modernist painter and engraver, while her niece Fureya Koral became a pioneering ceramic artist.


1930–1944

Şakir divorced Devrim in 1934, and married
Prince Zeid bin Hussein Sir Zaid bin Hussein Al Hashimi (; (28 February 1898 – 18 October 1970) was an Iraqi prince who was a member of the Hashemite dynasty and the head of the Royal House of Iraq from 1958 until his death, after the royal line founded by his bro ...
of Iraq, who was appointed the first Ambassador of the
Kingdom of Iraq The Hashemite Kingdom of Iraq was the Iraqi state located in the Middle East from 1932 to 1958. It was founded on 23 August 1921 as the Kingdom of Iraq, following the defeat of the Ottoman Empire in the Mesopotamian campaign of the First World W ...
to Germany in 1935. The couple moved to Berlin where Fahrelnissa hosted many social events in her role as an ambassador's wife. After the annexation of Austria in March 1938, Prince Zeid and his family were recalled to Iraq, taking up residence in
Baghdad Baghdad ( or ; , ) is the capital and List of largest cities of Iraq, largest city of Iraq, located along the Tigris in the central part of the country. With a population exceeding 7 million, it ranks among the List of largest cities in the A ...
. Fahrelnissa Zeid became depressed in Baghdad and on the advice of Viennese doctor
Hans Hoff Hans Harald Hoff, (born 9 April 1963),Ratsit: Hans Hoff
Oct ...
returned to Paris after a short time. She spent the next years of her life traveling between Paris, Budapest, and Istanbul, attempting to immerse herself in painting and recover. By 1941, she was back in Istanbul and focusing on her painting. Zeid became involved with the D Group of Istanbul, an
avant-garde In the arts and literature, the term ''avant-garde'' ( meaning or ) identifies an experimental genre or work of art, and the artist who created it, which usually is aesthetically innovative, whilst initially being ideologically unacceptable ...
group of painters working in the newly formed Turkish Republic. Although her association with the group was short-lived, working with the D Group from 1944 gave Zeid the confidence to begin exhibiting on her own.


1945–1957

In 1945, Zeid cleared out the parlour rooms of her apartment in Maçka, Istanbul, and held her first solo exhibition. In 1946, after two more solo exhibitions in
İzmir İzmir is the List of largest cities and towns in Turkey, third most populous city in Turkey, after Istanbul and Ankara. It is on the Aegean Sea, Aegean coast of Anatolia, and is the capital of İzmir Province. In 2024, the city of İzmir had ...
in 1945 and in Istanbul in 1946, Zeid relocated to London where Prince Zeid Al-Hussein became the first Ambassador of the Kingdom of Iraq to the
Court of St James's The Court of St James's serves as the official royal court for the Sovereign of the United Kingdom. The court formally receives all ambassadors accredited to the United Kingdom. Likewise, ambassadors representing the United Kingdom are formally ...
. Zeid continued to paint, turning a room in the Iraqi Embassy into her studio. From 1947, Zeid's practice became more complex and her work transitioned from figurative painting to abstraction. She was influenced by the abstract styles coming out of Paris in the post-war period.
Queen Elizabeth Queen Elizabeth, Queen Elisabeth or Elizabeth the Queen may refer to: Queens regnant * Elizabeth I (1533–1603; ), Queen of England and Ireland * Elizabeth II (1926–2022; ), Queen of the United Kingdom and other Commonwealth realms * Queen B ...
visited Zeid's exhibition at Saint George's Gallery in London in 1948. Art critic
Maurice Collis Maurice Stewart Collis (10 January 1889 – 12 January 1973) was an administrator in Burma (Myanmar) when it was part of the British Empire, and afterwards a writer on Southeast Asia, China and other historical subjects. Life He was born in Du ...
reviewed that exhibition, and he and Zeid became friends. The prominent French art critic and curator
Charles Estienne Charles Estienne (; 1504–1564), known as Carolus Stephanus in Latin and Charles Stephens in English, was an early exponent of the science of anatomy in France. Charles was a younger brother of Robert Estienne I, the famous printer, and son to ...
became a major supporter of Zeid's work. She was part of the founding exhibition of the Nouvelle Ecole de Paris organised by Estienne in 1952 at the Galerie Babylone. Over the next decade, living between London and Paris, Zeid created some of her strongest works, experimenting with monumental abstract canvases that immerse the viewer in kaleidoscopic universes through their heavy use of line and vibrant colour. Zeid exhibited at Galerie Dina Vierny in 1953, showing her most recent abstract works such as ''The Octopus of Triton'', and ''Sargasso Sea''. The exhibition travelled to the
Institute of Contemporary Arts The Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) is an modernism, artistic and cultural centre on The Mall (London), The Mall in London, just off Trafalgar Square. Located within Nash House, part of Carlton House Terrace, near the Duke of York Steps a ...
in London in 1954, making her the first woman of any nationality to exhibit at the modernist showcase. At the height of her career, she became friends with a group of international artists such as Jean-Michel Atlan,
Jean Dubuffet Jean Philippe Arthur Dubuffet (; 31 July 1901 – 12 May 1985) was a French Painting, painter and sculpture, sculptor of the School of Paris, École de Paris (School of Paris). His idealistic approach to aesthetics embraced so-called "low art" a ...
and
Serge Poliakoff Serge Poliakoff (January 8, 1900 – October 12, 1969) was a Russian-born French modernist painter belonging to the 'New' École de Paris ( Tachisme). Biography Serge Poliakoff was born in Moscow in 1900, the thirteenth of fourteen children. H ...
, who experimented with gestural abstraction. Fahrelnissa Zeid also exhibited frequently alongside other members of the Nouvelle Ecole de Paris in small group exhibitions, as well as exhibiting at the Salon des Realites Nouvelles
Salon des Réalités Nouvelles The Salon des Réalités Nouvelles is an association of artists and an art exhibition in Paris, focusing on abstract art. A first exhibition with the name was held in 1939 in Galerie Charpentier, organised by Robert Delaunay, Sonia Delaunay, Nell ...
.


1958–1991

In 1958, Zeid persuaded her husband not to return to Baghdad as acting
regent In a monarchy, a regent () is a person appointed to govern a state because the actual monarch is a minor, absent, incapacitated or unable to discharge their powers and duties, or the throne is vacant and a new monarch has not yet been dete ...
as he usually did while his great-nephew
King Faisal II Faisal II (; 2 May 1935 – 14 July 1958) was the last King of Iraq. He reigned from 4 April 1939 until July 1958, when he was killed during the 14 July Revolution. This regicide marked the end of the thirty-seven-year-old Hashemite monarchy ...
took a vacation. The couple went to their new holiday home on the island of
Ischia Ischia ( , , ) is a volcanic island in the Tyrrhenian Sea. It lies at the northern end of the Gulf of Naples, about from the city of Naples. It is the largest of the Phlegrean Islands. Although inhabited since the Bronze Age, as a Ancient G ...
in the
Gulf of Naples The Gulf of Naples (), also called the Bay of Naples, is a roughly 15-kilometer-wide (9.3 mi) gulf located along the south-western coast of Italy (Metropolitan City of Naples, Campania region). It opens to the west into the Mediterranean ...
. On 14 July 1958 there was a military coup in Iraq and the entire royal family was assassinated. Prince Zeid and his family narrowly escaped death, and they were given only 24 hours to vacate the Iraqi Embassy in London. The coup halted Zeid's career as a painter and hostess in London. Zeid and her family moved into an apartment in Paris and at the age of fifty-seven, she cooked her first meal. The experience prompted her to begin painting on chicken bones, later creating sculptures from the bones cast in resin, called ''paléokrystalos''. The 1960s were a period of both renewal and looking back for Zeid. She immersed herself in renewing her portrait practice alongside her abstract work. At the same time, she had two large-scale homecoming retrospectives in Turkey in 1964, in Istanbul and Ankara. She prepared for a large exhibition in Paris in the late 1960 after meeting
André Malraux Georges André Malraux ( ; ; 3 November 1901 – 23 November 1976) was a French novelist, art theorist, and minister of cultural affairs. Malraux's novel ''La Condition Humaine'' (''Man's Fate'') (1933) won the Prix Goncourt. He was appointed ...
but it never happened after the dismissal by Malraux of
Jacques Jaujard Jacques Jaujard (3 December 1895 – 21 June 1967) was a Civil servant, senior civil servant of the French fine art administration instrumental in the evacuation and protection of the French arts collections during World War II. Evacuation of ...
who coordinated with her, and the subsequent May 1968
May 68 May 68 () was a period of widespread protests, strikes, and civil unrest in France that began in May 1968 and became one of the most significant social uprisings in modern European history. Initially sparked by student demonstrations agains ...
events. Still Zeid continued exhibiting in Paris through 1972. In the 1960s Zeid's youngest son, Prince Raad, married and moved to
Amman Amman ( , ; , ) is the capital and the largest city of Jordan, and the country's economic, political, and cultural center. With a population of four million as of 2021, Amman is Jordan's primate city and is the largest city in the Levant ...
, Jordan. In 1970, Prince Zeid died in Paris and Fahrelnissa Zeid moved to join her son in Amman in 1975. She founded The Royal National Jordanian Institute Fahrelnissa Zeid of Fine Arts in 1976, and for the next fifteen years until her death in 1991 taught and mentored a group of young women.


Retrospectives and legacy

Museum Ludwig Museum Ludwig, located in Cologne, Germany, houses a collection of modern art. It includes works from Pop Art, Abstract and Surrealism, and has one of the largest Picasso collections in Europe. It holds many works by Andy Warhol and Roy Lic ...
held Zeid's first retrospective in the west in 1990. In October 2012,
Bonhams Bonhams is a privately owned international auction house and one of the world's oldest and largest auctioneers of fine art and antiques. It was formed by the merger in November 2001 of Bonhams & Brooks and Phillips Son & Neale. This brought t ...
auctioned a number of Zeid's paintings for a total of £2,021,838, setting a world record for the artist. In 2017, Tate Modern in London organised a major retrospective of Fahrelnissa Zeid. According to an article in ''
The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...
'', the exhibition aimed to lift the artist "out of obscurity to ensure that she does not become yet another female artist forgotten by history." The central gallery of the exhibition hosted large-scale, abstract paintings of Zeid from the late 1940s and 1950s including her five-meter work titled ''My Hell'' (1951). The last gallery was devoted to the portraits Zeid concentrated on in her last years in Amman, as well as resin sculptures. All the works in the exhibition were loaned from international collections and Tate Modern acquired one of the paintings, ''Untitled C'', "so she can now be part of our narrative," according to Tate Modern Director Frances Morris. The exhibition traveled to Deutsche Bank KunstHalle in late 2017. Istanbul Modern lent eight works to the retrospective exhibition and also organised the exhibition ''Fahrelnissa Zeid'' in spring 2017 with works from its collection, focusing on works created between the 1940s and 1970s.
Istanbul Modern Istanbul Museum of Modern Art, colloquially referred to as Istanbul Modern (), is a contemporary art gallery located inside the Galataport complex in the Beyoğlu district of Istanbul, Turkey. Inaugurated on December 11, 2004, Istanbul Modern was ...
director Levent Çalıkoğlu stated, "The belated interest of Western museums and art community in Zeid’s works. . . is restoring the value she deserves." In 2019 Zeid was commemorated with a ''Google Doodle''. Zeid's work was included in the 2021 exhibition ''
Women in Abstraction Women in Abstraction. Another History of Abstraction in the 20th Century or ''Elles font l'abstraction. Une autre histoire de l'abstraction au XXe siècle'' was a major exhibition of 20th century abstract art created by women. It was curated by ...
'' at the
Centre Pompidou The Centre Pompidou (), more fully the (), also known as the Pompidou Centre in English and colloquially as Beaubourg, is a building complex in Paris, France. It was designed in the style of high-tech architecture by the architectural team of ...
. In her lifetime and even after her death, Zeid’s work was beset by orientalist assessments that she fused Islamic and byzantine influences with modernism. The 2017 exhibitions. which strove to place her within the narratives of the transnational abstract practices of mid-twentieth century art, were criticised for their ‘Eurocentric’ framing. The concurrent publication of the artist’s biography ''Fahrelnissa Zeid: Painter of Inner Worlds'', written by Adila Laïdi-Hanieh, a former student of Zeid's, was seen as upsetting those narratives that explained her art from an ‘Orientalist’ perspective in a way that quite disengaged from the artist herself. Zeid often expressed her modernist sensibilities. Her inclinations were towards a more universalist, elemental vision of art-making. In 1952 she told the art critic Julien Alvard that:” I am a means to an end. I transpose the cosmic, magnetic vibrations that rule us… I am not a pole, a centre, a myself, a somebody. I act as a channel for that which should and can be transposed by me … painting is for me, flow, movement, speed, encounters, departures, enlargement that knows no limits." Adila Laïdi-Hanieh's ''Fahrelnissa Zeid: Painter of Inner Worlds'' offers a revisionist and definitive account of both her life and career, and emphasises the importance of her immersion in European culture and her shifting mental state on her artistic vision and constantly renewing bold practice. It redefines Fahrelnissa Zeid as one of the most important modernists of the twentieth century. Zeid's colourful family life is described in her daughter Shirin Devrim's book, ''A Turkish Tapestry: The Shakirs of Istanbul'', published in 1994.


Major works

* ''Fight Against Abstraction'', 1947 * ''Resolved Problems'', 1948 * ''My Hell'', 1951 * ''Towards a Sky'', 1953 * ''Someone from the Past'', 1980


Further reading

* Laïdi-Hanieh, Adila: ''Fahrelnissa Zeid: Painter of Inner Worlds'', London: Art / Books, 2017 * Laïdi-Hanieh, Adila: ''(Re)producing an 'Islamic-Byzantine' Artist The Orientalization of Fahrelnissa Zeid's Modernist Practice'', Manazir Journal, * Parinaud, André and Shoman, Suha: ''Fahrelnissa Zeid'', Amman: Royal National Jordanian Institute Fahrelnissa Zeid of Fine Arts, 1984 * Zaid, Fahrelnissa: ''Fahrelnissa Zeid: portraits et peintures abstraites'', Paris: Galerie Granoff, 1972


References


External links

* * Laïdi-Hanieh, Adila (2021). ''Fahrelnisaa Zeid 1901-1991.'' BarjeelFoundation.org

* Laïdi-Hanieh, Adila. Fahrelnissa Zeid at the AWARE: Archives of Women Artists, Research and Exhibition

* Harambourg, Lydia. “Les années 50 à Paris 1945/1965” Applicat-Prazan.com

* Kayabali, Yaman. “Fahrelnissa Zeid and the Problem of Eurocentrism in Art History’ “ Muftah. (https://muftah.org/fahrelnissa-zeid-problem-eurocentrism-art-history/#.YDpcTGgzY2x) * Özpınar, Ceren. “Why Not See Farther and Enlarge the Visual Orb’: Revisiting Fahrelnissa Zeid”. Third Text

{{DEFAULTSORT:Zeid, Fahrelnissa 1901 births 1991 deaths 20th-century Turkish painters 20th-century Turkish women artists Turkish abstract painters Fahrelnissa Fahrelnissa Artists from Istanbul Turkish women painters Lycée Notre Dame de Sion Istanbul alumni Princesses by marriage