Kavruk, Hasan

Kavruk was among the first Turkish artists to embrace lyrical abstraction. His paintings vary in style, technique, and support, from canvas and hardboard to cardboard and paper. Although he often worked in a thick, gestural impasto, in Composition II he applied the paint thinly, creating a silhouette of curved lines enlivened by vividly colored dots. Leaving the paper bare in places, he emphasized the painting’s overall translucency.

After graduating in 1943 from the Arts and Crafts Department at Gazi Education Institute, Ankara, Kavruk worked as an art teacher for several years before winning a scholarship to Paris in 1947. In France, Kavruk worked primarily with André Lhote and the abstract painter Jean Lombard. After exhibiting in the 1949 Salon d’Automne, Kavruk returned to Turkey and continued teaching. From 1965 until his retirement in 1982, he was on the faculty in the Painting Department at the Academy of Fine Arts, Istanbul.