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Lot Essay
“I did not ‘intend’ to become an abstract painter; I was a person working very conventionally with forms and values. But flying by plane transformed me…The world is upside down. A whole city could be held in your hand: the world seen from above.” – Fahrelnissa Zeid (Fahrelnissa Zeid, exh. cat., London, Tate Modern, 2017-2018).
Painted in 1948-49, Composition stands at a decisive moment in Fahrelnissa Zeid's artistic evolution, when the experiences, observations and influences accumulated over decades began to coalesce into the distinctive abstract language that would define her mature practice. Created at the threshold of the 1950s, the decade that would establish her international reputation, the work captures an artist reimagining not only the possibilities of painting, but the very act of seeing itself. The foundations of this vision were laid years earlier, from the transformative experience of her first journey by aeroplane, flying over Baghdad and encountering the landscape as a tapestry of colour, line and geometry, to childhood memories of watching passers-by through the machicolated windows of her family home, where figures appeared only as fleeting flashes of movement and light. Together, these moments revealed a world that was not fixed and stable, but layered, fragmented and constantly shifting. Neither wholly detached from the visible world nor bound to its literal representation, Composition occupies a space between memory and observation, reality and imagination, bringing together experiences gathered across Istanbul, Baghdad, Paris, London and beyond into a singular and deeply personal vision.
Across the canvas, deep blues, saturated reds, luminous yellows, brilliant oranges and delicate pinks unfold within an intricate framework of black lines that simultaneously divide and connect the picture plane. Their angular pathways recall the leaded structures of stained-glass windows, the geometric rhythms of Islamic architecture, and the luminous surfaces of Byzantine mosaics. Yet the painting never settles into a fixed image. Colour surges across the surface while forms expand, contract and collide in a dynamic interplay that draws the eye endlessly onward. There is no singular focal point; instead, the composition reveals itself through a succession of discoveries, each shape leading seamlessly into the next. At moments, one senses the aerial perspective that first transformed Zeid's understanding of the world, as though a city seen from above had dissolved into a vibrant constellation of colour and geometry. Elsewhere, the forms hover between ornament and landscape, structure and light. Familiar associations emerge only fleetingly before giving way to new possibilities.
The work's own journey then mirrors the cosmopolitan trajectory of its creator. Following Prince Zeid Al-Hussein's appointment as the first Ambassador of the Kingdom of Iraq to the Court of St James's in 1946, the couple relocated to London, where Zeid established a studio on the third floor of the Iraqi Embassy at 22 Queen's Gate. Composition was photographed hanging within the embassy, placing it at the centre of a formative period in which she moved between London and Paris. The painting remained with her through the upheaval of 1958, when the Iraqi monarchy was overthrown and the couple were forced to leave the embassy they had occupied for more than a decade. After settling in Amman in 1975 and establishing a new studio there, the work appears once again in photographs taken outside her home during 1977 and the 1980s. Seen across these different settings, from diplomatic London to her later years in Jordan, Composition becomes more than a witness to Zeid's life; the places, experiences and histories are brought together into a single kaleidoscopic whole.
A pioneering figure of twentieth-century modernism, Fahrelnissa Zeid was born in 1901 into the distinguished Şakir family on Büyükada, one of Istanbul's Princes' Islands. Raised within a milieu of intellectuals, writers, and artists, she displayed artistic talent from an early age and enrolled at the Academy of Fine Arts for Women in Istanbul in 1919, becoming one of the first women in Turkey to receive formal artistic training. In 1928, she continued her studies in Paris at the Académie Ranson under Roger Bissière, where she encountered the currents of European modernism that would profoundly shape her development. Upon returning to Istanbul, she resumed her studies at the Academy of Fine Arts and gradually forged an increasingly independent artistic language. Following her marriage to Prince Zeid Al-Hussein of Iraq in 1933, her life unfolded between Berlin, Baghdad, Istanbul, London, Paris and later Amman, exposing her to a rich range of cultural, architectural and artistic traditions. From the late 1940s onwards, her paintings moved decisively towards abstraction, culminating in the monumental kaleidoscopic compositions of the 1950s that established her international reputation. Following the upheaval of the 1958 Iraqi Revolution, Zeid continued to live and work between Europe and the Middle East before settling permanently in Amman in 1975, where she founded an informal art school and mentored a younger generation of artists. She remained active until her death in 1991.
Her work is included in major international collections such as Tate, London; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Institut du monde arabe, Paris; Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art, Doha; Barjeel Art Foundation, Sharjah; Istanbul Museum of Modern Art, Istanbul; Jordan National Gallery of Fine Arts, Amman and Guggenheim Abu Dhabi, Abu Dhabi.
Painted in 1948-49, Composition stands at a decisive moment in Fahrelnissa Zeid's artistic evolution, when the experiences, observations and influences accumulated over decades began to coalesce into the distinctive abstract language that would define her mature practice. Created at the threshold of the 1950s, the decade that would establish her international reputation, the work captures an artist reimagining not only the possibilities of painting, but the very act of seeing itself. The foundations of this vision were laid years earlier, from the transformative experience of her first journey by aeroplane, flying over Baghdad and encountering the landscape as a tapestry of colour, line and geometry, to childhood memories of watching passers-by through the machicolated windows of her family home, where figures appeared only as fleeting flashes of movement and light. Together, these moments revealed a world that was not fixed and stable, but layered, fragmented and constantly shifting. Neither wholly detached from the visible world nor bound to its literal representation, Composition occupies a space between memory and observation, reality and imagination, bringing together experiences gathered across Istanbul, Baghdad, Paris, London and beyond into a singular and deeply personal vision.
Across the canvas, deep blues, saturated reds, luminous yellows, brilliant oranges and delicate pinks unfold within an intricate framework of black lines that simultaneously divide and connect the picture plane. Their angular pathways recall the leaded structures of stained-glass windows, the geometric rhythms of Islamic architecture, and the luminous surfaces of Byzantine mosaics. Yet the painting never settles into a fixed image. Colour surges across the surface while forms expand, contract and collide in a dynamic interplay that draws the eye endlessly onward. There is no singular focal point; instead, the composition reveals itself through a succession of discoveries, each shape leading seamlessly into the next. At moments, one senses the aerial perspective that first transformed Zeid's understanding of the world, as though a city seen from above had dissolved into a vibrant constellation of colour and geometry. Elsewhere, the forms hover between ornament and landscape, structure and light. Familiar associations emerge only fleetingly before giving way to new possibilities.
The work's own journey then mirrors the cosmopolitan trajectory of its creator. Following Prince Zeid Al-Hussein's appointment as the first Ambassador of the Kingdom of Iraq to the Court of St James's in 1946, the couple relocated to London, where Zeid established a studio on the third floor of the Iraqi Embassy at 22 Queen's Gate. Composition was photographed hanging within the embassy, placing it at the centre of a formative period in which she moved between London and Paris. The painting remained with her through the upheaval of 1958, when the Iraqi monarchy was overthrown and the couple were forced to leave the embassy they had occupied for more than a decade. After settling in Amman in 1975 and establishing a new studio there, the work appears once again in photographs taken outside her home during 1977 and the 1980s. Seen across these different settings, from diplomatic London to her later years in Jordan, Composition becomes more than a witness to Zeid's life; the places, experiences and histories are brought together into a single kaleidoscopic whole.
A pioneering figure of twentieth-century modernism, Fahrelnissa Zeid was born in 1901 into the distinguished Şakir family on Büyükada, one of Istanbul's Princes' Islands. Raised within a milieu of intellectuals, writers, and artists, she displayed artistic talent from an early age and enrolled at the Academy of Fine Arts for Women in Istanbul in 1919, becoming one of the first women in Turkey to receive formal artistic training. In 1928, she continued her studies in Paris at the Académie Ranson under Roger Bissière, where she encountered the currents of European modernism that would profoundly shape her development. Upon returning to Istanbul, she resumed her studies at the Academy of Fine Arts and gradually forged an increasingly independent artistic language. Following her marriage to Prince Zeid Al-Hussein of Iraq in 1933, her life unfolded between Berlin, Baghdad, Istanbul, London, Paris and later Amman, exposing her to a rich range of cultural, architectural and artistic traditions. From the late 1940s onwards, her paintings moved decisively towards abstraction, culminating in the monumental kaleidoscopic compositions of the 1950s that established her international reputation. Following the upheaval of the 1958 Iraqi Revolution, Zeid continued to live and work between Europe and the Middle East before settling permanently in Amman in 1975, where she founded an informal art school and mentored a younger generation of artists. She remained active until her death in 1991.
Her work is included in major international collections such as Tate, London; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Institut du monde arabe, Paris; Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art, Doha; Barjeel Art Foundation, Sharjah; Istanbul Museum of Modern Art, Istanbul; Jordan National Gallery of Fine Arts, Amman and Guggenheim Abu Dhabi, Abu Dhabi.