Folkart Gallery in western İzmir province hosts an exhibition comprising of precious artworks by Fikret Mualla, the free and original palette of the School of Paris, as the first exhibition of 2020. The exhibition titled “Fikret Mualla: A Lonely and Wounded Life” presents Mualla’s 55 unique and freestyle pieces.
Wounded life
Fikret Mualla, a 20th century avant-garde painter of Turkish descent, was born in Istanbul on July 20, 1903. Loved much by his mother, he lived a blissful childhood in Kadıköy’s Moda neighborhood between 1910-1915. But he became slightly lame after a football injury at the age of 12. He was sent to Saint-Joseph and later Galatasaray High School, both of which provide education in French. He got Spanish flu and passed it to his mother, which caused her death. This was the very first event that would deeply affect the painter. Following his mother’s death, his father remarried, which made Mualla a difficult and maladjusted character in childhood. Upon the unrest in the family, he was sent to study in Switzerland; however, this would be his first step into the art world although he was not aware of it. He visited museums in Switzerland, Germany and Italy and decided to stay in Germany, where he finished the Academy of Fine Arts in Berlin.
Mualla finally recognized his talent and made successful paintings, designs and fashion drawings. His drawings were even accepted by German magazines. But the bohemian atmosphere of Germany drew him in and he became an alcoholic. Treated for a short period in a hospital, he then returned to Turkey and became a painting teacher. He did not teach for long. He started to make a living by writing for newspapers, magazines and making sketches. He soon became addicted to alcohol again and started experiencing psychological problems as well.
After spending a period in a mental hospital, he returned once again to Istanbul’s bohemian scene and painted the city at the request of Abidin Dino, who was in charge of the Turkish Pavilion at the World Exposition in New York. It was his farewell to the city. He left for France and spent 29 years there. During his last days in the world, he summed up his life in a letter. He wrote: “In my opinion, every artist should suffer hardship, anguish and hunger. Only after that should they enjoy life. After the age of fifty, people start to seek comfort and health and start thinking. That is my fate. My life has passed in a struggle against poverty. Now in this quiet village, I submit to living peacefully by myself waiting for the final period of my life as ordained by God. Apart from this, I have no problems! No pretensions. We have seen every kind of circumstance the world has to offer, we have tasted very few of the pleasures of life. Today what is left but for my tongue to recall the past and my brush to paint?” The artists died at the age of 64 on July 26, 1967.
Today, many of Mualla's works are included in top private and public museums' collections in Turkey, such as the Ankara Museum of Painting and Sculpture and Sakıp Sabancı Museum. Mualla’s retrospectives are run by many internationally recognized modern and contemporary art museums, especially by Istanbul Modern. Despite this fame in the contemporary era, Mualla once claimed that he does not follow the contemporary movements. According to academics and critics, this opinion is dominant for him due to the fact that he did not interfere with the theoretical concerns of painting.
Traces of misery
The latest exhibition “Fikret Mualla: A Lonely and Wounded Life” at Folkart Gallery introduces the precious artist’s personal belongings, letters and books, as well as institutional collections.
Remembered artistically for his bohemian and phenomenal life among figures like Avni Arbaş, Hakkı Anlı, Albert Bitran, Hale Asaf, Abidin Dino, Nejad Melih Devrim, Remzi Paşa and Mübin Orhon advocating the same school of art, Fikret Mualla’s registered and certified works take visitors on a journey into the artist’s life full of challenges.
It will be seen at the show that everyday details of life in Paris, such as coffee shops, circuses and streets, make up most of the subject matters of Mualla’s paintings. Portraying the people of the bohemian society that he also lived in, in his paintings, Mualla has been more familiar with and faster using the gouache technique, he is also known for using oil paint as skillfully as he used watercolor and gouache. Art enthusiasts can enjoy a glimpse from Mualla's oeuvre at Folkart until May 17, 2020.
