Fikret Muallâ Saygı

Fikret Muallâ Saygı (1904 in Kadıköy, Istanbul, Turkey – July 20, 1967 in Reillanne, France) was a 20th-century avant-garde painter of Turkish descent. His work reflects influences from Expressionism and Fauvism, with subject matter focusing on Paris street life, social gatherings such as cafés and circuses.

He was born in Kadıköy, Istanbul, but lived and worked in Paris, a long time since 1939 as an artist.

Fikret Mualla was very much loved by his mother. This relationship played an important role in his later life. At the age of 12, he was crippled in his right foot when he kicked hardly to imitate his uncle Hikmet Topuzer, a footballer for Fenerbahçe SK. Not long after, he lost his mother to a grippe epidemic. His father remarried a very young woman, however Fikret Mualla did not accept his stepmother.

After high school, his father sent him to Zurich, Switzerland to study engineering. Fikret Mualla left Switzerland soon to settle in Berlin, Germany. A childhood accident, leaving Mualla with a bad physical condition, contributed to his erratic personality and mental disorder in his adult years. He was institutionalized a number of times, for alcohol dependency and extreme paranoia. In 1928, he was hospitalised in Berlin due to delirium. He then went to Paris, the capital of arts and the centre of unlimited freedom for him. However, he was forced to return home as he did not receive any more money from his father.

In Istanbul, he was deemed to have normal mental health after a three-day stay in Bakırköy Psychiatric Hospital. Fikret Mualla was appointed as a teacher for drawing in a high school in Ayvalık. However, he quit this position and moved to Beyoğlu, a neighborhood in Istanbul. He tried his hand, for a while, at writing and drawing. He became friends with soprano Semiha Berksoy, writer Nazım Hikmet and painter Abidin Dino. His first exhibition in 1934 containing drawings, watercolor paintings and designs did not gain much attention. In 1936, he was hospitalised again for about a year. After his release, he decided to leave Turkey, where he felt he was not understood. Before he went in 1939 to Paris, he made around thirty oil paintings for the Turkish pavilion at the New York World's Fair asked by his close friend Abidin Dino.

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