Erol Akyava

Born Ankhara, Turkey, 1932 (d.1999)

Akyava studied at the Istanbul Academy of Fine Arts, 1950–2, and as a guest student at the Florence Academy of Fine Arts, 1952. He worked in the Paris studios of André Lhote and Fernand Léger. He studied architecture at the Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago, 1954–60. From 1954 he divided his time between the USA and Turkey. His works, which include paintings, lithographs and installations of plexiglass plates (icons), are in museum collections in Turkey, the United States (including MoMA, New York) and Germany, as well as in private collections throughout Europe and the USA. He participated in numerous solo and group exhibitions in the United States, Europe, Russia and the Middle East, including the first and second International Istanbul Biennials, 1987 and 1989. He had a solo exhibition in 1988 at the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA), London, and a retrospective of his work was organized at the Dolmabahçe Kültür Merkezi, Istanbul, 2000. His architectural work for Hotel Cappadocia in Uchisar (Göreme),Turkey, 1964–5, was nominated for the Aga Khan Award.