Fikret Moualla was born in Istanbul in 1903 in a famous Turkish family. Slightly disabled as a result of an accident and traumatized by the early death of his mother, he sinks into rebellion and alcoholism at the age of 15 years old, causing him numerous hospitalizations.

His father wanted him to join the engineering profession and in 1919 he sent him in Germany to continue his studies. In Germany he met numerous artists and acquired a solid classical training at the Academy of Fine Arts in Berlin. It was the assistant to the famous portraitist Arthur Kampf and he met Hale Asaf, listed among the first Turkish women painters. After six years of studies he received a diploma of honor. He stayed in Munich, where he taught drawing at the Academy of Fine Arts, and then went to Paris in 1926 having an animated bohemian life.

In 1929, he returned to Istanbul and finds his country in transformation under the rule of Ataturk. He obtained a post of professor of drawing to his Galatasaray High School, but the scandals and fights he makes causes his intern in Bakirkoy Hospital. There he met the legendary poet and social critic Neyzen Tevfik that will influence for the rest of his life.

For a year he also works as an art teacher in the small town of Ayvalık on the Aegean coast. During this period he collaborated with poet Nazim Hikmet for the staging of this drama. He tries to hang his paintings in bookstores and among supervisors.

For rapidity of execution and saving materials, he mostly paints with gouache. Contrary to his incisive drawings, approaching caricature, his coloured range betrays a tender nostalgia. In the distant line of Toulouse-Lautrec, he painted nudes, scenes of whorehouse, streets, bistro life and some still life paintings.