Çiçek / Flower

Abidin Dino was a painter, cinematographer and cartoonist who was born in Istanbul in 1913. That same year his family moved to Geneva, where he lived until he was twelve years old. He later attended Robert College in Istanbul but when his interest in drawing and caricature increased he left without graduating. He never received a formal art education but was self-taught. He pursued a career as an artist, while at the same time writing and drawing cartoons for newspapers and magazines. In 1933 he became one of the founding members of the D Group. In 1934 he won a state scholarship to study cinematography in Leningrad, where he worked with
Sergei Yutkevich. Afterwards he went to Paris and London, returning to Turkey in 1938. In 1940 he joined the New Painters Group.

The D Group was founded in 1933 by six friends, five of them painters and one a sculptor (Nurullah Cemal Berk, Zeki Faik İzer, Elif Naci, Cemal Tollu, Abidin Dino and Zühtü Müridoğlu). Subsequently the group was joined by Turgut Zaim, Bedri Rahmi Eyüboğlu, Eren Eyüboğlu, Eşref Üren, Arif Kaptan, Halil Dikmen, Sabri Berkel, Salih Urallı, Hakkı Anlı, Fahrünnisa Zeid, Nusret Suman and Zeki Kocamemi. The group remained active until 1951, representing the generation of young artists of the period and played an influential role in the visual arts. The name D Group was chosen because the letter 'd' is the fourth letter in the Latin alphabet and this was the fourth group of artists to be established in Turkey. Most of the group's members had studied in Paris and were influenced by the artists under whom they worked there. Upon their return home they opposed the impressionist style of the 1914 Generation, instead adopting a cubist, structuralist style, fragmenting the elements of their paintings to create more solid and sharply defined forms. This group argued that the art of a westernizing country had to be 'new'.

The New Painters Group was formed of artists influenced by western art who wished to introduce new movements into Turkish art, and established in reaction to the D Group of artists. This was a period when the uncertainty, political and economic problems and unrest resulting from the Second World War had begun to affect culture and art, leading to new emphasis on a national viewpoint. The New Painters Group was founded in 1940 by Nuri İyem, Avni Arbaş, Selim Turan, Nejat Devrim, Kemal Sönmezler and Turgut Atalay, who were all students of Levy, a teacher at the Academy of Fine Arts, and by Abidin Dino, a former member of the D Group. Their principal objective was to release Turkish painting from the influence of new western art movements, and focus on social problems. Although the group did not sever themselves from western art in technical terms, their work began to reflect local traditions and predominantly social themes. When some of the members settled in Paris, the group's influence gradually declined from 1946 onwards.