Dictionary of


Art  &  Artist




 

 Sabri Berkel

 

Sabri Berkel         Pages: 1


(b Scobje, Macedonia [now Skopje, Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia], 23 March 1909; d 1993).

 Turkish painter and printmaker. He studied painting at the Belgrade School of Fine Arts (1927–8) and at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Florence (1929–35), where he also worked on engravings. In 1935 he exhibited his work at the Academy of Fine Arts in Istanbul and in 1937 took up a position in a new printmaking workshop there, where he taught for many years. In 1948 Berkel studied book illustration and production with the French painter Jean-Gabriel Daragnès (1886–1950) in Paris. During the 1950s the style of his work progressed from linear geometric compositions, such as Bagel Seller (1952; Istanbul, Mimar Sinan U., Mus. Ptg & Sculp.), to include the first abstract calligraphic composition in Turkish art, Monogram (1957; priv. col., see Renda and others), exhibited in the Turkish Pavilion at the Exposition Universelle et Internationale in Brussels in 1958. In both his earlier figurative paintings and his later abstract works form takes precedence over colour, with a concern for composition and balance. He exhibited his work at the São Paulo Biennales in 1967 and 1969; the Academy of Fine Arts, Istanbul (1977); the Baraz Gallery, Istanbul (1978); the Pulchri Studio, The Hague (1980); and the Guranti Art Gallery, Istanbul (1984).
 

Abstract composition