Biography
Fatma Meral Horne, born in 1940 in Bebek, Istanbul, is a Turkish sociologist, traveler, photographer, and batik artist. Some sources refer to her as the first Turkish female traveler. She completed her primary education at five different schools; she spent some time in the United States through the AFS program. After graduating from high school in 1958, she graduated from the Sociology Department of Istanbul University. Beginning her travels at the age of eighteen, she spent twelve years visiting more than forty countries; she undertook weeks-long treks in the Himalayas and traveled through India for about a year on third-class trains. She spent a long time primarily in Asia. She opened a course in Sydney, Australia, where she met the New Zealand painter Guy Horne. Her travel writings, which she sent to the Hürriyet newspaper, were published between 1968 and 1972 under the title "A Tourist Girl's Notebook / Give Me Your Hand, Asia." She specialized in photography; in 1970, she learned batik art on the island of Java in Indonesia. At Türkan Saylan's request, she gave short batik lessons in Turkey. She has held more than thirty exhibitions in Switzerland, Australia, New Zealand, Indonesia, and Turkey. According to the Orkun Ozan (Himmet ÖCAL) Art Gallery archive, she is associated with exhibitions #17 | Fatma Meral HORNE Batik and #86 | Art Worn from Asia to Europe.
