become a painter, and her daughter Şirin Devrim (born 1926) became an actress. Zeid travelled to Paris in 1928 and enrolled at the Académie Ranson, where she studied under the painter Roger Bissière. Upon her return to Istanbul in 1929, she abandoned her academic figurative practice and turned towards expressionist figurativism, and enrolled at the Istanbul Academy of Fine Arts. Her brother Cevat Şakir Kabaağaçlı, better known as the Fisherman of Halicarnassus, was a novelist. Under her tutelage, her sister Aliye Berger became a major modernist painter and engraver, while her niece Fureya Koral became a pioneering ceramic artist. 1930–1944 Zeid divorced Devrim in 1934, and married Prince Zeid bin Hussein of Iraq, who was appointed the first Ambassador of the Kingdom of Iraq to Germany in 1935. The couple moved to Berlin where Zeid hosted many social events in her role as an ambassador's wife. After the annexation of Austria in March 1938, Prince Zeid and his family were recalled to Iraq, taking up residence in Baghdad. Zeid became depressed in Baghdad and on the advice of Viennese doctor Hans Hoff returned to Paris after a short time. She spent the next years of her life traveling between Paris, Budapest, and Istanbul, attempting to immerse herself in painting and recover. By 1941, she was back in Istanbul and focusing on her painting. Zeid became involved with the D Group of Istanbul, an avant-garde group of painters working in the newly formed Turkish Republic. Although her association with the group was short-lived, working with the D Group from 1944 gave Zeid the confidence to begin exhibiting on her own. 1945–1957 In 1945, Zeid cleared out the parlour rooms of her apartment in Maçka, Istanbul and held her first solo exhibition. In 1946, after two more solo exhibitions in İzmir in 1945 and in Istanbul in 1946, Zeid relocated to London where Prince Zeid Al-Hussein became the first Ambassador of the Kingdom of Iraq to the Court of St James's. Zeid continued to paint, turning a room in the Iraqi Embassy into her studio. From 1947, her practice became more complex and her work transitioned from figurative painting to abstraction. Zeid was influenced by the abstract styles coming out of Paris in the post-war period. Queen Elizabeth visited her exhibition at Saint George's Gallery in London in 1948. Art critic Maurice Collis reviewed that exhibition and they became friends. The prominent