Still Life with Fish

Feyhaman Duran was born in Istanbul and studied at the Royal School (Galatasaray High School). Prince Abbas Halim Paşa of Egypt supported his further education in Paris, where he went in 1911. He attended the studio of François Schommer and Jean-Paul Gervais at the Julian Academy in 1912, and attended the studios of Jean-Paul Laurens (1838- 1921) and Paul-Albert Laurens in 1913-1914. When the First World War broke out in 1914 he returned to Turkey, becoming one of the ‘1914 Generation’ of painters. Eight of his works were shown at the Vienna and Berlin Exhibitions in 1918. In 1919 he was appointed as art teacher at the School of Fine Arts for Girls, and continued to work at this school after it became part of the School of Fine Arts in 1927, remaining until his retirement. Feyhaman Duran was also a master calligrapher and collector. He won a silver medal at the first Galatasaray Exhibition and an honourable mention in 1916. Those exhibitions were organized from 1916 onwards by the Ottoman Society of Painters.

Feyhaman Duran belonged to the group of young Ottoman artists who went to Europe to study art in 1909-1910—principally at the Julian Academy in Paris—but were obliged to return home at the outbreak of the First World War, so becoming known as the '1914 Generation'. As well as Feyhaman Duran, they included leading painters like İbrahim Çallı, Nazmi Ziya, Avni Lifij, Namık İsmail and Hikmet Onat, who played an important part in the spread of such genres as landscape and still life in Turkish painting. A striking aspect of their work is the way their paintings reflect their own impressions and personal interpretations. Owing to their pure colors and sensitivity to light, these painters are sometimes described as the Turkish Impressionists. Almost all of them were among the first Turkish teachers at the Academy of Fine Arts in Istanbul and so were active in training the next generations of Turkish artists.