Çiçek / Flower

Abidin Dino was a painter, cinematographer and cartoonist who was born in Istanbul in 1913. That same year his family moved to Geneva, where he lived until he was twelve years old. He later attended Robert College in Istanbul but when his interest in drawing and caricature increased he left without graduating. He never received a formal art education but was self-taught. He pursued a career as an artist, while at the same time writing and drawing cartoons for newspapers and magazines. In 1933 he became one of the founding members of the D Group. In 1934 he won a state scholarship to study cinematography in Leningrad, where he worked with Sergei Yutkevich. Afterwards he went to Paris and London, returning to Turkey in 1938. In 1940 he joined the New Painters Group.The D Group was founded in 1933 by six friends, five of them painters and one a sculptor (Nurullah Cemal Berk, Zeki Faik İzer, Elif Naci, Cemal Tollu, Abidin Dino and Zühtü Müridoğlu). Subsequently the group was joined by Turgut Zaim, Bedri Rahmi Eyüboğlu, Eren Eyüboğlu, Eşref Üren, Arif Kaptan, Halil Dikmen, Sabri Berkel, Salih Urallı, Hakkı Anlı, Fahrünnisa Zeid, Nusret Suman and Zeki Kocamemi. The group remained active until 1951, representing the generation of young artists of the period and played an influential role in the visual arts. The name D Group was chosen because the letter