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The late Turkish artist fahrelnissa zeid, who is famous for her contemporary art in Ottoman Turkey.
Whoever looks at the life of the late Turkish artist fahrelnissa zeid can imagine how dramatic life was in Turkey, Europe and the Middle East in the twentieth century.
Zeid's artwork is displayed at exhibitions in Turkey or Europe every year. The late artist lived a life very similar to her artwork: a joyful life filled with colors.
The curator of the Museum of International Art at the Tate Modern Museum in London and the curator participating in the current Tate Gallery, spoke of fahrelnissa Zeid to The National newspaper, saying: " It is surprising how an artist with such strength and originality was erased from artistic memory. "
fahrelnissa Zeid's works are still being exhibited in international museums and galleries not only in London but also in Turkey (Modern Istanbul), Germany (Deutsche Bank Kunsthalle Berlin) and Lebanon (Sursock Museum, Beirut). It is worth noting that fahrelnissa Zeid was a Ottoman aristocrat, painter, princess, ambassador, and teacher.
fahrelnissa Zeid lived an exciting and interesting life. She born in 1901 in a rich Ottoman family in Istanbul, the artist grew up in Buyukada, the largest of the Princes' Islands, a short distance from the city.
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Her family members were all creative people. At the age of 12, her father Muhammed Şakir Pasha, who was a statesman and historian, was killed by a bullet by her older brother Cevat, who later became a prominent writer under the name "Fisherman of Halicarnassus (Halikarnas Balıkçısı)".
This tragedy has left its mark on all family members. Fahrelnissa Zeid suffered from depression throughout her life and found refuge in painting, which was for her a hobby at first.
At the age of 19, fahrelnissa Zeid enrolled in the newly-established Academy of Fine Arts for Women but soon left her after her marriage to İzzet Melih Devrim in 1920.
Through Devrim, the couple became among the members of the circle close to Kemal Ataturk and was the founder of the then modern Turkish Republic.
In 1934, fahrelnissa Zeid met Prince Zeid bin Hussein, who was the Iraqi ambassador to Turkey. She divorced from Devrim and got married to Bin Hussein. With this marriage, the late artist won the title of Princess for belonging to the Hashemite royal family. fahrelnissa Zeid was accompanying her husband to the countries where he was appointed, especially in large European cities.
In 1949, she changed her name to fahrelnissa Zeid and it is a translated name from Turkish into Arabic. In her fifties, she lived a double life: her diplomatic life in London and the other is Bohemianism in Paris.
In the Forties, fahrelnissa Zeid became acquainted with the "D" group, a group of pioneering artists in modern art in Turkey. fahrelnissa Zeid exhibited her works in a solo show for the first time in 1944 in her apartment in Istanbul.
fahrelnissa Zeid was influenced at the beginning of her work by the Anatolian culture and developed a distinctive style that combines the traditions of modern European paintings with oriental ideas such as her painting in 1943 "Third Class Passengers".
Later in Europe in the 1950s, she moved towards the abstract art for which her paintings are known. The Tate Museum displays two of her paintings, "Fight Against Abstraction" (1947) and "Solved problems" (1948) that embody its transition from pictorial to abstract.
fahrelnissa Zeid considered most of her paintings as her personal possessions and transported it with her to the various cities in which she lived, from Istanbul to Amman and Berlin to Baghdad and London to Paris.
Everywhere she went, she managed to collect all of her paintings in her home, which sometimes reached the ceiling. Sometimes, she was Spread it on the floor as if it was a magic colorful carpet so we see that some of the paintings are a little bit damaged.
Zeid was authoritarian and did not like anyone to challenge her. Her relationship with her son, the painter Nejad Devrim, was not good, perhaps because of the artistic competition between them.
Haldon Dostoglu, founder of the "Galeri Nev İstanbul" and curator of the 2006 Zeid-Devrim Gallery at the Museum of Modern Art in Istanbul, told "Al-Monitor" that Zeid was jealous of the success of her son in his mid-twenties in Paris in the 1950s. While she was also influenced by the masterpieces of abstract art at the Paris School and tried to create a place for herself in this art movement.
fahrelnissa Zeid was proud to be an inspiration to others in her family. As we mentioned, she fought her depression through drawing, and when her sister Alia Berger lost her beloved husband, Zeid encouraged her to emboss.
When her niece experienced the painful divorce, she found psychological comfort next to her aunt. She later became a prominent artist.
After the death of her second husband, fahrelnissa Zeid completed her career as an inspiring teacher for young women in Amman, where she set up a school in her home, the Pride of Women Institute Zeid for Royal Fine Arts. She encouraged women to become artists. Zeid has painted endless portraits of people close to her.
Although the institute lasted for only four years, from 1976 to 1980, Zeid's latest attempt to grow the seeds of art in the Middle East proved to be fruitful.
She continues to inspire the work of many artists, including one of her first pupils, Suha Shoman, who founded the Darat al Funun - the Khaled Shoman Foundation.