Ben Uri Research Unit

for the study and digital recording of the Jewish, Refugee and wide Immigrant contribution to British visual culture since 1900.


Fahrelnissa Zeid artist

Fahrelnissa Zeid was born as Fahrünissa Şakir into an influential political family on Büyükada Island, Istanbul, Ottoman Empire (now Turkey) on 7 January 1901. She was educated in Istanbul and Paris and, after marrying her second husband, a member of the Jordanian royal family, she lived in various countries. In 1946, Zeid immigrated to London, England when he became Iraqi ambassador and where she continued her practice as an abstract painter for around a decade. In 2017 her work featured posthumously in a major retrospective at Tate Modern.

Born: 1901 Istanbul, Turkey

Died: 1991 Amman, Jordan

Year of Migration to the UK: 1946

Other name/s: Princess Fahrelnissa Zeid, H.R.H. Princess Fahr-El-Nissa Zeid, Fahr-El-Nissa Zeid


Biography

Artist Fahrelnissa Zeid was born as Fahrünissa Şakir on Büyükada island, Istanbul, Ottoman Empire (now Turkey) on 7 January 1901, into an influential political family. In 1919, she enrolled at the Academy of Fine Arts for Women in Istanbul, making her one of the first women to attend the city’s art schools. In 1928, she moved to Paris and studied at the Académie Ranson under Roger Bissière before returning home and enrolling in the Istanbul Academy of Fine Arts in 1929. She also supported the artistic development of both her sister Aliye Berger and her niece Fureya Koral. Zeid was married twice: first to the novelist İzzet Melih Devrim, with whom she had three children, and later to Prince Zeid bin Hussein, an Iraqi and a member of the Jordanian royal family, with whom she had one child. She lived variously in Amman, Baghdad, Berlin, Istanbul, Paris and London. In 1946, when Al-Hussein became the first Ambassador of the Kingdom of Iraq at the Court of St James's, Zeid immigrated with him to London, where she continued to paint, as well as carrying out ambassadorial duties, converting a room in the Iraqi Embassy into an art studio shortly after her arrival.

From the outset of her time in England, Zeid embraced abstraction, taking cues from the post-war Parisian abstract movement. Her oeuvre, varying in scale and technique, primarily encompassed large-scale abstract paintings, characterised by vivid colour and kaleidoscopic patterns, alongside drawing, lithography, and sculpture, although she occasionally worked with figuration. In 1948, she held an exhibition at the Saint George’s Gallery, London, which was attended by Queen Elizabeth, and at Galerie Dina Vierny in Paris in 1953. When Zeid’s solo exhibition opened at the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) in London in 1954, she was described as an artist from a traditional and cultured Turkish family, whose work was profoundly influenced by her extensive knowledge of Baghdad, the Middle East, and the Mediterranean regions (Coventry Evening Telegraph, 9 July 1954, p. 29). Another critic remarked on their conveying a nightclub or jazz feeling (The Scotsman,1954, p. 10). Four years later, at an exhibition of Turkish art in Edinburgh in 1957, under the auspices of the Arts Council, her painting Mon Enfer was described as an imposing piece dominating the entrance hall (Edinburgh Evening News), while The Scotsman characterised it as swirling, fragmented and deeply personal piece (1957, p. 8). In the same year, Zeid opened an exhibition at Leighton House in Holland Park (close to her London home) by the Ceylonese-born artist Varuni Hunt (née Pieris). During the peak of Zeid's career, which partly coincided with her stay in London, she also formed friendships with a international circle of French artists and cultural figures, including Charles Estienne, Jean-Michel Atlan, Jean Dubuffet, Serge Poliakoff and André Malraux. On 14 July 1958, a military coup in Iraq resulted in the assassination of the entire royal family. The Zeids narrowly avoided the same fate and were given just 24 hours to leave the Iraqi Embassy in London.

Zeid's paintings blend influences from Islamic, Byzantine, Arab, and Persian traditions with European styles of abstraction and have been subjected to both orientalist readings as well as corrections of such interpretations. However, regardless of their context, Zeid undeniably expresses a modernist sensibility, gravitating towards a more universalist and elemental vision of artmaking. Zeid was connected to avant-garde art movements in Istanbul (D Group), pre-war Berlin, and post-war Paris. In 1975, she relocated to Amman to join her son and the following year she established The Royal National Jordanian Institute Fahrelnissa Zeid of Fine Arts where she taught young women until her death. Fahrelnissa Zeid died in Amman, Jordan on 5 September 1991 and, despite her successful international career, was quickly forgotten. However, in 2017, Tate Modern in London hosted a significant retrospective of her work. The aim of the Tate exhibition was to bring her once again into the spotlight and prevent her from becoming yet another female artist lost to history. Co-curator, Kerryn Greenberg, believed that Zeid's obscurity is because she was a Muslim woman who left Europe (Ellis-Petersen, 2017). In 2021, Bonhams auctioned several of Zeid’s paintings, fetching a total of £2,021,838 ,establishing a new world record for the artist. In the UK pubic domain her works are held in the collections of Bradford Museum and Galleries and Tate. In 2024 her work featured in Foreigners Everywhere (group show) in the Central Pavillion of the Venice Biennale.

Related books

  • Hannah Ellis-Petersen, ‘Fahrelnissa Zeid: Tate Modern resurrects artist forgotten by history’, The Guardian, 12 June 2017
  • Kerryn Greenberg, ed., Fahrelnissa Zeid, exh. cat. (London: Tate Publishing, 2017)
  • Adila Laïdi-Hanieh, Fahrelnissa Zeid: Painter of Inner Worlds (London: Art/Books, 2017)
  • Kevin Jones, 'Fahrelnissa Zeid: The courage to unlearn', ArtAsiaPacific, Vol. 95, 2015, pp. 92-99
  • Wolfgang Becker, Fahr-El-Nissa Zeid: zwischen Orient und Okzident, Gemälde und Zeichnungen (New York: Neue Galerie, 1990)
  • André Parinaud and Suha Shoman, Fahrelnissa Zeid (Amman: Royal National Jordanian Institute Fahrelnissa Zeid of Fine Arts, 1984)
  • No author, ‘Turkish art had impact: Young and healthy movement’, The Scotsman, 16 August 1957, p. 8
  • No author, ‘The Peasant Scene in Turkish Art’, Edinburgh Evening News, 15 August 1957, p. 5
  • No author, ‘London Art Shows’, The Scotsman, 17 July 1954, p. 10
  • No author, ‘London Letter & News’, Coventry Evening Telegraph, 9 July 1954, p. 29

Public collections

Related web links

Selected exhibitions

  • Foreigners Everywhere (group show), Central Pavilion/Venice Biennale, Venice (2024)
  • Fahrelnissa Zeid (solo auction), Bonhams, London (2021)
  • Fahrelnissa Zeid (solo exhibition), Tate Modern, London (2017)
  • Sharjah Biennial 12: The Past, the Present, the Possible (group show), Sharjah Art Foundation, Sharjah (2015)
  • The Peasant Scene in Turkish Art (group show), Arts Council, Edinburgh (1957)
  • Fahrelnissa Zeid (solo exhibition), Institute of Contemporary Arts, London (1954)
  • Fahrelnissa Zeid (solo exhibition), Galerie Dina Vierny, Paris (1953)
  • Nouvelle Ecole de Paris (group show), Galerie Babylone, Paris (1952)
  • Fahrelnissa Zeid (solo exhibition), Saint George’s Gallery, London (1948)
  • Fahrelnissa Zeid (solo exhibition), apartment in Maçka, Istanbul (1945)
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Ben Uri archive

Consult items in the Ben Uri archive related to [Fahrelnissa Zeid]

Ben Uri library

Publications related to [Fahrelnissa Zeid] in the Ben Uri Library