Princess Fahrelnissa Zeid (Arabic: فخر النساء زيد, Fakhr un-nisa or Fahr-El-Nissa, born Fahrünissa Şakir; 6 December 1901 – 5 September 1991) was a Turkish artist best known for her large-scale abstract paintings with kaleidoscopic patterns as well as her drawings, lithographs, and sculptures.

The same year, she married Prince Zeid bin Hussein, a member of the Hashemite royal family of Iraq.

Fahrünissa's father, Şakir Pasha, was appointed ambassador to Greece, where he met her mother, Sara İsmet Hanım.

Under her tutelage, her sister Aliye Berger became a major modernist painter[12] and engraver, while her niece Fureya Koral became a pioneering ceramic artist.

Fahrelnissa Zeid became depressed in Baghdad and on the advice of Viennese doctor Hans Hoff returned to Paris after a short time.

The prominent French art critic and curator Charles Estienne became a major supporter of Zeid's work.

Over the next decade, living between London and Paris, Zeid created some of her strongest works, experimenting with monumental abstract canvases that immerse the viewer in kaleidoscopic universes through their heavy use of line and vibrant colour.

[18] Zeid exhibited at Galerie Dina Vierny in 1953, showing her most recent abstract works such as The Octopus of Triton, and Sargasso Sea.

At the height of her career, she became friends with a group of international artists such as Jean-Michel Atlan, Jean Dubuffet and Serge Poliakoff, who experimented with gestural abstraction.

In 1958, Zeid persuaded her husband not to return to Baghdad as acting regent as he usually did while his great-nephew King Faisal II took a vacation.

She founded The Royal National Jordanian Institute Fahrelnissa Zeid of Fine Arts in 1976, and for the next fifteen years until her death in 1991 taught and mentored a group of young women.

[22] In October 2012, Bonhams auctioned a number of Zeid's paintings for a total of £2,021,838, setting a world record for the artist.

"[1] The central gallery of the exhibition hosted large-scale, abstract paintings of Zeid from the late 1940s and 1950s including her five-meter work titled My Hell (1951).

[26] Istanbul Modern director Levent Çalıkoğlu stated, "The belated interest of Western museums and art community in Zeid’s works.

[29] In her lifetime and even after her death, Zeid’s work was beset by orientalist assessments that she fused Islamic and byzantine influences with modernism.

which strove to place her within the narratives of the transnational abstract practices of mid-twentieth century art, were criticised for their ‘Eurocentric’ framing.

Adila Laïdi-Hanieh's Fahrelnissa Zeid: Painter of Inner Worlds offers a revisionist and definitive account of both her life and career, and emphasises the importance of her immersion in European culture and her shifting mental state on her artistic vision and constantly renewing bold practice.

[31] Zeid's colourful family life is described in her daughter Shirin Devrim's book, A Turkish Tapestry: The Shakirs of Istanbul, published in 1994.