Leyla Gamsız Click for Artist Information

Leyla Gamsız

Leyla Gamsız (1921 - 2010)

Leyla Gamsız was born in Istanbul in 1921. She was a student of Bedri Rahmi Eyüboğlu at the Department of Painting at the Academy of Fine Arts. She worked in the workshops of Andre Lhote and Fernand Léger in Paris in 1952.

Leyla Gamsız, one of the founders of the Group of Ten, established in 1947, blends Anatolian and Western art in her works. The artist's unique language has enabled him to become one of the innovative painters of Turkish painting. The artist also defines the form; developed a subtle and determined style by distorting and changing to certain extent and focusing on color.

The works of Leyla Gamsız, one of the pioneering female artists in the synthesis of abstract and traditional art of the 1950s, are in the collections of the Painting and Sculpture Museum in Istanbul and the Istanbul Museum of Modern Art. The artist passed away in Istanbul in 2010.

“Painting is as important to me as life... If there is no painting, there is no life for me... If I have done a good job that day, my joy is restored. I become alive. The world seems bright to me. I find the world worth living in. If I don't work the way I want, I see the world as a dungeon. I am devastated about how I will survive in this world. I exist as long as I paint, and when I can paint, I find the world worth living. For this reason, my life and my paintings present an integrity. "I attach importance to measured deformation and a simplified contemporary understanding of form, both in my figure arrangements, landscapes and still lifes." Leyla Gamsız