Fethi Karakaş Click for Artist Information

Fethi Karakaş

FETHİ KARAKAŞ (1916-1977)

Karakaş was born in Istanbul in 1916. He had an heart attack while he was studying in Galatasaray High School. Doctors told him to quit school so he started to work on his paintings at home. After a year he started to attend Istanbul Fine Arts Academy (currently known as Mimar Sinan University Faculty of Fine Arts) as a guest student. He took lessons from Nazmi Ziya Güran, Leopold Levy, Zeki Kocamemi and Cemal Tollu while he was a student at the Academy. He became one of the co founders of ‘’Yeniler Group’’ with his friends from the school (Nuri Iyem, Avni Arbaş, Agop Arad, Turgut Atalay, Haşmet Akal, Kemal Sönmezler, Selim Turan, Ferruh Başağa and Mümtaz Yener) from the Academy in 1946. He opened the first private painting school of Turkey with Nuri İyem and Ferruh Başağa in Beyoğlu Asmalımescit at Önay Apartment’s loft. He made his first national exhibition 1952 which is called ‘Lugano Black and White’. In 1960 he attended the 2nd Biennial in Tokio and International Engraving Exhibition in Dinar in 1961. He uses blue and green colours’ harmony in his paintings and he painted Istanbul views with lots of light. In the last years of his life he retired from painting and started to fix furniture and paintings. He passed away in Istanbul in 1977.