Fikret Otyam (December 19, 1926 – August 9, 2015) was a Turkish

painter Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface (called the "matrix" or "support"). The medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush, but other implements, such as knives, sponges, and ai ...

and

journalist A journalist is an individual that collects/gathers information in form of text, audio, or pictures, processes them into a news-worthy form, and disseminates it to the public. The act or process mainly done by the journalist is called journalism ...

. He was born in Aksaray, where his father was running a pharmacy store. After attending elementary school in Aksaray, he graduated from İstanbul State Fine Arts Academy, the present-day

Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University The Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University ( tr, Mimar Sinan Güzel Sanatlar Üniversitesi, or MSGSÜ) is a Turkish public university dedicated to higher education in the fine arts. It is located in the Fındıklı neighbourhood of Beyoğlu, Istanbu ...

, where he studied under

Bedri Rahmi Eyüboğlu Bedri Rahmi Eyüboğlu (1911 – 21 September 1975) was a Turkish painter, mosaic-maker, muralist, writer and poet. His art work was inspired by Anatolian village scenes and folk literature, and included traditional handicraft folk patterns. E ...

. (1953). He began his career in journalism before moving to painting and photography. He has worked in Son Saat, Dünya, Akın,

Ulus Ulus may refer to: Places *Ulus, Bartın, a district in Bartin Province, Turkey *Ulus, Ankara, an important quarter in central Ankara, Turkey **Ulus (Ankara Metro), an underground station of the Ankara Metro Other uses * ''Ulus'' (newspaper), a d ...

, Kudret and

Cumhuriyet ''Cumhuriyet'' (; English: " Republic") is the oldest up-market Turkish daily newspaper. It has been described as "the most important independent public interest newspaper in contemporary Turkey". The newspaper was awarded the ''Freedom of Pres ...

newspapers.Otyam, Fikret, Republic of Turkey Ministry of Culture and Toruism web site
Recently, he wrote a weekly column for the Aydınlık daily. He made a name for himself with his series interviews with ordinary people of

southeastern The points of the compass are a set of horizontal, radially arrayed compass directions (or azimuths) used in navigation and cartography. A compass rose is primarily composed of four cardinal directions—north, east, south, and west—each se ...

and

eastern Turkey The Eastern Anatolia Region ('' tr, Doğu Anadolu Bölgesi'') is a geographical region of Turkey. The most populous province in the region is Van Province. Other populous provinces are Malatya, Erzurum and Elazığ. It is bordered by the Black Se ...

. Those interviews were later published as books. After his retirement in 1979, he moved to his farm in Antalya where he started focusing more on his paintings. His painting style was largely influenced by artists Turgut Zaim,

Namık İsmail Namık İsmail (1890 in Samsun – August 30, 1935 in Istanbul) was a Turkish Impressionist painter and art educator, who received his training in France. Biography İsmail was born into an upper-class family that moved to Istanbul while he was s ...

and

.Turkish artist, journalist Fikret Otyam dies aged 89, published in Today's Zaman on August 9, 2015
Depictions of veiled Anatolian women and goats are two figures that appear frequently in his paintings. After his first exhibition in 1952, Otyam held more than 30 exhibitions in Turkey and abroad, and his works were included in the collections of foreign museums and private collectors. He died of renal failure at Antalya on August 9, 2015 at the age of 88.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Otyam 1926 births 2015 deaths Turkish columnists Ulus (newspaper) people Turkish writers Academy of Fine Arts in Istanbul alumni Deaths from kidney failure 20th-century Turkish painters