Fahrelnissa Zeid
Princess Fahrelnissa Zeid (1901 – 1991) was an artist whose work blended the elements of Islamic and Byzantine art from the East with abstract and other influences from the West. She worked in a variety of media such as large oil paintings, collages and stained glass panels. She married into the Hashemite royal family of Iraq and is the mother of Prince Raad, the present claimant to the Iraqi throne.
Biography Fahrelnissa was born in Istanbul in 1901 into a prominent Ottoman family. Her father was Shakir Pasha, an Ottoman diplomat, photographer, and historian, and also the brother of Grand Vizier Cevat Pasha. Her mother was Sare Ismet Hanim. She was the sister of writer Cevat Shakir Kabaaghacli (the Fisherman of Halicarnassus) and painter Aliye Berger. She was educated at Notre Dame de Sion and Pansion Bnagiotti. She was then one of the first women to attend the Imperial Academy of Fine Arts in Istanbul, later studying at the Ranson Academy in Paris under Roger Bissiere and Stahlbach. Her first marriage was to novelist Izzet Melih Devrim, one of Servet-i Funun writers, in 1920. This union produced two children: artist Nejad Devrim and director/actress Shirin Devrim. In 1934, she married Prince Zeid ibn Huseyin, the ambassador of Iraq to Ankara and brother of King Faisal I. With Zeid she had a son, Prince Raad. Her first one-woman show was held in Istanbul in 1944, followed by exhibitions in London and Paris. Her New York début came in 1950 when she exhibited a series of large abstract canvases at the Hugo Gallery. She went on to participate in almost 50 exhibitions in Europe, U.S.A. and the Middle East. Her husband died in 1970, and in 1975 she moved to Amman, Jordan, where her son Raad lived, and where she established the Fahrelnissa Zeid Institute of Fine Arts. She died in 1991.
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