Füreya Koral (June 2, 1910 – August 25, 1997) was a pioneering

ceramics A ceramic is any of the various hard, brittle, heat-resistant, and corrosion-resistant materials made by shaping and then firing an inorganic, nonmetallic material, such as clay, at a high temperature. Common examples are earthenware, porce ...

artist born into a prominent artistic family in Turkey. Known for her wall panels, Koral worked in a variety of media such as

tile Tiles are usually thin, square or rectangular coverings manufactured from hard-wearing material such as ceramic, Rock (geology), stone, metal, baked clay, or even glass. They are generally fixed in place in an array to cover roofs, floors, wal ...

s and

statuettes A figurine (a diminutive form of the word ''figure'') or statuette is a small, three-dimensional sculpture that represents a human, deity or animal, or, in practice, a pair or small group of them. Figurines have been made in many media, with cla ...

, and also created ceramic-inlaid tables and stools . She started working on ceramics after she was diagnosed with

tuberculosis Tuberculosis (TB), also known colloquially as the "white death", or historically as consumption, is a contagious disease usually caused by ''Mycobacterium tuberculosis'' (MTB) bacteria. Tuberculosis generally affects the lungs, but it can al ...

while receiving treatment at a sanatorium in

Switzerland Switzerland, officially the Swiss Confederation, is a landlocked country located in west-central Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the south, France to the west, Germany to the north, and Austria and Liechtenstein to the east. Switzerland ...

. A self-taught artist, her works were mostly ignored during her lifetime although she did create wood-and-ceramic furnishings for the new National Assembly Building in

Ankara Ankara is the capital city of Turkey and List of national capitals by area, the largest capital by area in the world. Located in the Central Anatolia Region, central part of Anatolia, the city has a population of 5,290,822 in its urban center ( ...

. Seeking to push the limits of ceramics beyond its function, she was inspired by the art of the ancient civilisations of Turkey, Mexico and East Asia, especially Japan, and her work often combines elements taken from both Western and Eastern artistic traditions. She signed her works with the anglicised version of her given name, Fureya.

Early life

Füreya Koral was born in

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 ...

Istanbul Istanbul is the List of largest cities and towns in Turkey, largest city in Turkey, constituting the country's economic, cultural, and historical heart. With Demographics of Istanbul, a population over , it is home to 18% of the Demographics ...

. Her father was Mehmet Emin Paşa, a notable soldier and statesman in the

Ottoman Empire The Ottoman Empire (), also called the Turkish Empire, was an empire, imperial realm that controlled much of Southeast Europe, West Asia, and North Africa from the 14th to early 20th centuries; it also controlled parts of southeastern Centr ...

and then a companion to Atatürk, her mother was Hakkiye Hanım and her grandfather was Mehmed Şakır Paşa, an Ottoman statesman and historian. Like her aunts

Fahrelnissa Zeid 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 with kaleidoscopic patterns ...

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. ...

and Ayşe Erdem, and her uncle

Cevat Şakir Kabaağaçlı Cevat Şakir Kabaağaçlı (17 April 1890 – 13 October 1973; born Musa Cevat Şakir; pen-name "The Fisherman of Halicarnassus", ) was a Cretan Turkish author, essayist, ethnographer and travel writer. Early life On April 17, 1890, he was ...

(the Fisherman of Halicarnassus), Koral was an enthusiast for music, painting and literature. She studied at the Lycée Notre Dame de Sion in Istanbul and received a diploma from a private Jewish High School in 1928. She then enrolled at the Department of Philosophy at the

Istanbul University Istanbul University, also known as University of Istanbul (), is a Public university, public research university located in Istanbul, Turkey. Founded by Mehmed II on May 30, 1453, a day after Fall of Constantinople, the conquest of Constantinop ...

Faculty of Literature in 1929 but her father's illness and mandatory retirement forced her to quit university before graduating as the family's financial situation deteriorated. In 1930, she moved to

Bursa Bursa () is a city in northwestern Turkey and the administrative center of Bursa Province. The fourth-most populous city in Turkey and second-most populous in the Marmara Region, Bursa is one of the industrial centers of the country. Most of ...

after marrying a farm owner named Selahattin Karacagil. The couple divorced in 1932 and in 1935 she remarried to Kılıç Ali, a close friend of

Mustafa Kemal Atatürk Mustafa Kemal Atatürk ( 1881 – 10 November 1938) was a Turkish field marshal and revolutionary statesman who was the founding father of the Republic of Turkey, serving as its first President of Turkey, president from 1923 until Death an ...

. After Atatürk's death, the couple moved back to Istanbul. Immediately after helping her aunt, artist

, open her first solo exhibition in her home at the Ralli Apartment Block in 1945, Füreya was diagnosed with

. She started treatment at the [tasis) Sanatorium in

, where she took painting lessons from a Polish artist.

Artistic career

1947–1954

While in Switzerland Füreya began to experiment with ceramics using materials sent to her by her aunts Fahrelnissa Zeid and Aliye Berger. In 1949, she attended a ceramics workshop in Lausanne. In 1950, she moved to Paris to resume treatment for TB and there she crossed paths with the ceramics artist Georges Serré (1889–1956) and, on his advice, began working on firing techniques at a workshop outside Paris. She also met the art critics Jacques Lassaigne and Charles Estienne who advised her to stage an exhibition. Her first solo exhibition opened at Galerie M.A.I. in Paris in 1951 and was followed by a solo exhibition in Turkey at the Maya Gallery founded by Adalet Cimcoz, one of the first private contemporary art galleries in the country. This exhibition featured wall ceramics inspired by the ''çini'' (tile) tradition and other works that treated folkloric themes. She returned to Istanbul in 1953 and established one of the first private ceramic studios in Turkey at the El Irak apartment building on Cumhuriyet Caddesi in Harbiye where she lived with her husband.

1954–1980

After divorcing Kılıç Ali in 1954, Füreya moved her home and studio to the ground floor of the Şakir Pasha apartment building. In the 1950s this studio became a meeting place for young ceramic artists, including Ayda Arel,

Alev Ebüzziya Siesbye Alev Ebüzziya Siesbye (born 30 August 1938) is a Turkish- Danish ceramic artist. Siesbye designed ceramic wares for the ceramic companies Royal Copenhagen and Rosenthal AG. In 2009, Siesbye was awarded the Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des ...

and Leyla Sayar (Akkoyunlu), as well as Bingül Başarır, Candeğer Furtun, Binay Kaya, and Mehmet Tüzüm Kızılcan. It was also a gathering point for figures from the world of arts and culture of the period, including prominent writers such as

Melih Cevdet Anday Melih Cevdet Anday (13 March 1915 – 28 November 2002) was a Turkish people, Turkish writer whose poetry stands outside the traditional literary movements. He also wrote in many other genres which, over six and a half decades, included eleven ...

Azra Erhat Azra Erhat (4 June 1915 – 6 September 1982) was a Turkish author, archaeologist, academic, classical philologist, and translator. A pioneer of Turkish Humanism, Azra Erhat is especially well known for her published works, including many transla ...

Sabahattin Eyüboğlu Sabahattin Eyüboğlu (1908 – 13 January 1973) was a Turkish writer, essayist, translator and film producer. Biography Sabahatttin Eyüboğlu was born in 1908 on the Black Sea coast town of Akçaabat near Trabzon in a family with five ch ...

, Vedat Günyol,

Yaşar Kemal Yaşar Kemal (; born Kemal Sadık Gökçeli; 6 October 1923 – 28 February 2015) was a leading Turkish writer of Kurdish descent, who wrote in Turkish and a human rights activist. He received 38 awards during his lifetime and had been a candid ...

(her uncle) and

Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar (23 June 1901 – 24 January 1962) was a Turkish poet, novelist, literary scholar and essayist, widely regarded as one of the most important representatives of modernism in Turkish literature. In addition to his literary and ...

. In 1957, Füreya received a Rockefeller grant to study in the US, and then continued on to

Mexico Mexico, officially the United Mexican States, is a country in North America. It is the northernmost country in Latin America, and borders the United States to the north, and Guatemala and Belize to the southeast; while having maritime boundar ...

to carry out research on the

Aztec The Aztecs ( ) were a Mesoamerican civilization that flourished in central Mexico in the Post-Classic stage, post-classic period from 1300 to 1521. The Aztec people included different Indigenous peoples of Mexico, ethnic groups of central ...

and

Mayan Mayan most commonly refers to: * Maya peoples, various indigenous peoples of Mesoamerica and northern Central America * Maya civilization, pre-Columbian culture of Mesoamerica and northern Central America * Mayan languages, language family spoken ...

cultures. Encountering Mexico's widespread mural tradition reinforced her belief that art should not be trapped in museums and paved the way for the large panels she would go on to make for public spaces. After returning to Istanbul in 1958, Füreya designed ceramic coffee cups for the Pavilion of Turkey at the Expo '58 Brussels World Fair. She also continued her collaborations with architects, ranging from Utarit Izgi to Haluk Baysal, Melih Birsel, Abdurrahman Hancı, and Selçuk Milâr. She created large-scale panels for the Marmara Hotel in the grounds of the Atatürk Forest Farm in Ankara in 1959; for the

Hacettepe University Hacettepe University () is a public research university in Ankara, Turkey. It was established on 8 July 1967. It is ranked first among the Turkish universities by University Ranking by Academic Performance in 2021. The university has two main c ...

Faculty of Medicine in 1965; for

Ziraat Bank Ziraat Bankası () is a Turkish state-owned bank founded in 1863. The bank provides commercial loan support to companies and tradesmen, as well as personal loans such as consumer loans, vehicle loans and housing loans. History During the firs ...

, Başak Insurance, and the Istanbul Textile Traders’ Market (Manifaturacılar Çarşısı) in 1966; for the Anafartalar Market in 1967; and for the Divan Hotel in 1968. In 1960–61, Füreya was invited to provide a series of ceramic-inlaid coffee tables and stools to furnish the new National Assembly Building in Ankara. In the 1970s, she focused on designing objects using the

stoneware Stoneware is a broad class of pottery fired at a relatively high temperature, to be impervious to water. A modern definition is a Vitrification#Ceramics, vitreous or semi-vitreous ceramic made primarily from stoneware clay or non-refractory fire ...

technique and created an exclusive series for the Istanbul Porcelain Factory in

Tuzla Tuzla (, , ) is the List of cities in Bosnia and Herzegovina, third-largest city of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the administrative center of Tuzla Canton of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina. As of 2013, it has a population of 110,979 inha ...

in 1973. The same year, her works were exhibited at Yapı Endüstri Merkezi uilding Industry Centre

1980–1997

Füreya became Chair of the Ceramicists Association founded in 1980. However it was shut down under martial law following the 1980 coup d'état. She produced a series called ''Houses''—one of her best known works based on the row houses she could see from the Arif Paşa apartment building—between 1980 and 1985; exhibited at

Maçka Maçka (, the "club"; Laz language, Laz: მაჩხა ''Maçxa'') is a municipality and Districts of Turkey, district of Trabzon Province, Turkey. Its area is 925 km2, and its population is 24,709 (2022). The name derives from the medieval ...

Art Gallery in Istanbul in 1985, these works were later awarded the

Sedat Simavi Sedat Simavi (1896 – 11 December 1953) was a Turkish journalist, writer and film director. He established many newspapers and magazines. Biography Simavi was born in 1896. His grandfather and uncles served in different positions in the of ...

Visual Arts Prize. In 1990, she exhibited

terracotta Terracotta, also known as terra cotta or terra-cotta (; ; ), is a clay-based non-vitreous ceramic OED, "Terracotta""Terracotta" MFA Boston, "Cameo" database fired at relatively low temperatures. It is therefore a term used for earthenware obj ...

figurines titled ''Walking People'' alongside works by forty artists who joined the exhibition ''With Respect to Fureya Koral on her 40th Year in Art,'' organised by Maçka Art Gallery''.'' Füreya Koral died on 25 August 1997.

Exhibitions

". . . For me ceramic art, first of all is like a tool, or a book, or music. A tool to express the world, to make my own world come alive, a tool that makes living and sharing possible. I mean ceramics are not just decorative items or objects of consumption." (Füreya Koral, from her interview with Zeynep Oral, published in ''Milliyet Sanat'' on February 15, 1993)

Füreya participated in exhibitions at numerous galleries and institutions, including Salon d'Octobre, Paris; the

Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street (Manhattan), 53rd Street between Fifth Avenue, Fifth and Sixth Avenues. MoMA's collection spans the late 19th century to the present, a ...

, Mexico City; Naprstkovo Museum,

Prague Prague ( ; ) is the capital and List of cities and towns in the Czech Republic, largest city of the Czech Republic and the historical capital of Bohemia. Prague, located on the Vltava River, has a population of about 1.4 million, while its P ...

; and the

Smithsonian Institution The Smithsonian Institution ( ), or simply the Smithsonian, is a group of museums, Education center, education and Research institute, research centers, created by the Federal government of the United States, U.S. government "for the increase a ...

Washington, D.C. Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly known as Washington or D.C., is the capital city and federal district of the United States. The city is on the Potomac River, across from Virginia, and shares land borders with ...

Opened in the fall of 2017, a posthumous retrospective of her work at Akaretler Sıraevler, Istanbul included over 200 pieces, presented alongside archival materials such as letters and photographs. Organised by Károly Aliotti, Nilüfer Şaşmazer and Farah Aksoy, the exhibition aimed to present a comprehensive study of her work, which has, perhaps, been overshadowed by her gender and her family's important role in late Ottoman and early Turkish history. In June 2022 some of Füreya's coffee tables and stools from Turkey's Grand National Assembly Art Collection (Türkiye Büyük Millet Meclisi Sanat Koleksiyonu) were shown in the new

Galataport Galataport is a mixed-use development located along of shore in the Karaköy (formerly called Galata) neighbourhood of Istanbul, Turkey on the European shore of the Bosporus strait near its confluence with the Golden Horn right in the heart of ...

cruise terminal in

Karaköy Karaköy (), the modern name for the old Galata, is a commercial quarter in the Beyoğlu district of Istanbul, Turkey, located at the northern part of the Golden Horn mouth on the European side of Bosphorus. Karaköy is one of the oldest and mo ...

as part of the Beyoğlu Cultural Road festival alongside family photographs and memorabilia and copies of photographs of the artist taken by

Ara Güler Ara Güler (; 16 August 1928 – 17 October 2018) was a Turkish photojournalist of Armenian descent, nicknamed "the Eye of Istanbul" or "the Photographer of Istanbul". He was "one of Turkey's few internationally known photographers". Early li ...

Culture

Ayşe Kulin Ayşe Kulin (born 26 August 1941) is a Turkish short story writer, screenwriter and novelist. Biography Kulin was born in Istanbul in 1941. Her father, Muhittin Kulin, of Bosniak origin, was one of the first civil engineers in Istanbul who f ...

's novel ''Füreya'', published in 2005, tells the ceramicist's story in fictional form.