Ali Çelebi Click for Artist Information

Ali Avni Çelebi

Ali Avni Çelebi (1904 - 1993)

Born in 1904 in Istanbul, he entered Sanayi-i Nefise in 1918 and became a student of Hikmet Onat in the preparatory class. Later, he transferred to İbrahim Çallı's workshop. In 1920, he left the school and went to Germany and attended Grober's classes at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich. He attended Hans Hoffman's studio for a short time and then became a student of Kleve at the Academy of Fine Arts in Berlin. In 1923, he returned to Munich and worked under Hofmann for four years. After returning to Turkey in 1927, he taught at teachers' schools in Konya. In 1930, he went back to Hofmann for a year. In 1931, he was appointed as a lecturer at the Academy of Fine Arts in Istanbul, but left this position after a few months. In 1934, he started to work as a designer at Istanbul University, Faculty of Literature, Department of Archaeology. In 1938, he again became a lecturer at the Painting Department of the Academy of Fine Arts. After working as an assistant to Leopold Levy and Feyhaman Duran until 1956, he taught in his own studio until 1968, when he retired.

Çelebi, who was among the founders of the Union of Independent Painters and Sculptors with close friends such as Ali Avni Çelebi and Zeki Kocamemi, opposed the academic understanding throughout his life. He was influenced by Hofmann's understanding of Cubism, with whom he studied, and early in his artistic life, he made paintings that combined the constructive aspect of Cubism with the color understanding of German Expressionism. Çelebi focused on certain subjects in certain periods; between 1926-37 he focused on urban life, between 1938-42 on the nature of the region where he traveled in Turkey, and in the 1950s on daily life. In the 1970s, he painted expressionist landscapes with figures, especially from Büyükada, Çınarcık and Düzce. The artist, who adhered to the central composition concept in his paintings, has a unique balanced use of color. He died in 1993 in Istanbul.