Painter (B. 4 January 1900, Istanbul – D. 14 August
1985, Ankara). She is the wife of politician and academic, Prof. Dr. Fahri Ecevit, mother of politician and former Prime
Minister Bülent Ecevit. She came from a family with military background.
She was an Istanbul lady. Her father is Colonel Emin Bey, her grandfather Ferik
Salih Pasha. Her sister Ferhande Hanım is the second wife of İsmail Hakkı Bey,
son of Tevfik Pasha who was the last grand vizier (Prime Minister) of Ottoman
Empire. Hakkı Bey’s first wife was Sultan Vahdettin’s daughter Ulviye Sultan.
Therefore Nazlı Ecevit has a kinship with Sultan Vahdettin even if a remote
one. The father of Nazlı Hanım’s mother is Kirat Pasha who served as a servant
to the Sultan. Her husband Ahmet Fahri Bey worked as a professor of forensic
medicine in Ankara University, Faculty of Law. During the one-party-government
of Cumhuriyet Halk Party (CHP) he became a parliament member from his hometown,
Kastamonu (1943). However, he could not be elected in general election of 1950
in which the Democrat Party (DP) prevailed.
Nazlı Ecevit completed Darülmuallimat (Teaching School
for Girls) (1915) and İnas
Sanayi-i Nefise Mektebi (the Department of Painting in Fine Arts School for
girls), which opened during the second constitutional period (1922). She was
one of the first students of this school. In this sense, she is one of the
firsts of Turkey as a woman painter. She served as a painting teacher in
conservatories of Istanbul and Ankara for a long time. Besides she worked as a
painting teacher in Ankara and Istanbul Girls High Schools (1922-41). She
worked in workshops of Mihri Müşfik and Feyhaman Duran. Their influence is
visible on the constitution of her realistic style with impressionist
influence. She successfully put all styles into her toile. Between the years
1922-47 she gave a break to painting, but restarted it later. She joined almost
all exhibitions of State Painting and Sculpture Museum between the years
1948-75 and her paintings were taken to this museum.
Nazlı Ecevit is known with her landscape, portrait or
still life works. Her works usually are oil paint, watercolor, pastel and
charcoal pencil works. She is especially famous with her oil-paint woman
portraits, oil-paint Istanbul paintings and oil-paint landscapes. She was
granted in 1975 (at her 75th age) a medal of success by the Directorate
of Istanbul Archeology Museum in Open Air Painting-Sculpture and Ceramics
Exhibition of Istanbul Festival. Aside from all these, she also found time to
be a member and president in associations related to her profession. Nazlı
Ecevit passed away in Ankara in 1985. Her paintings are present in numerous
museums and special collections and draw attention in auction organizations.
