Şevket Dağ (1876 - 1944) Click for Artist Information

Şevket Dağ

Şevket Dağ (1876 - 1944 )
He completed his primary education at Hacı Ferhat School and his secondary education at Dar-ül Muallimin. He graduated from Sanayi-i Nefise Mektebi in 1897 as a student of Osman Hamdi Bey and Alexandre Vallaury.
After working as a clerk in Evkaf for a while, he started teaching painting in Mahmudiye High School, which started in 1902 and lasted for twenty-three years. He worked at Galata, Nişantaşı, Aksaray, Feriköy, Koca Reşit Paşa and Kadıköy Numune Schools, Vefa, Nişantaşı and Galatasaray High Schools, respectively. He became the teacher of painter Fikret Mualla at Galatasaray High School.

In his memoirs, Fikret Mualla states: "He was a wrestler, elegant, with big eyes and a large mustache. When he entered our first lesson, he took out three pencils and a penknife from his pocket. He showed how to open a pencil as the first lesson. Şevket Bey was an educator who started from the alphabet of each subject." he mentions.

While he was an art teacher at Dar-ül Muallimin (Istanbul Teacher's School), he also became the teacher of Malik Aksel, who would talk about him in his books later on. In 1909, he chose the house of Mehmet Ruhi Arel in Şehzadebaşı as the venue, and was among the founders of the Ottoman Painters Association, which was established with the artists of the period gathered.