Arif Kaptan Click for Artist Information

Arif Kaptan

ARİF KAPTAN (1906-1979)

The artist was born in Istanbul in 1906. He graduated from Naval Academy in 1924. Kaptan started to take interest in painting when he was a student. After becoming an army officer, he worked with Nazmi Ziya for a long period of time. He continued going to the Academy as a guest student and after quitting from the army he fully gave himself to painting and went to Paris. His work can be examined in two periods. The first period which carries Nazmi Ziya’s influence shows traces of impressionism at a level that doesn’t neglect drawing. On his later period Kaptan withdrew from figure and and gravitated towards abstract forms. He lied heavily on matte colours and angled forms in those paintings which he worked with intense layers of paint that acts as a relief on the surface. Especially with his understanding of abstraction in 1953, he ranked as one of the first lyrical abstract painters. Small and colourful geometric forms on a wide plain surface has been the major element of his lyrical abstractions. He passed away in 1979.