Zühtü Müridoğlu

Biography

Zühtü Müridoğlu’s father was the chief imam of the Cezayirli Gazi Osman Pasha Mosque in the Kasımpaşa quarter of Istanbul. The paints with which the future sculptor first began to draw he found in the attic of his family home. His course was then settled by an acquaintance, Mithat Özar: on his advice the young man entered the Academy of Fine Arts (Sanayi-i Nefise Mektebi) in Istanbul in 1924.

He was born on 26 January 1906 in Istanbul, in the last years of the Ottoman Empire.

In the sculpture department he studied under İhsan Özsoy and finished the course in 1928. Having passed the examination for study abroad, he received a scholarship and went to France. In Paris he was met first of all by his friend Hadi Bara, who was already living there and gave the newcomer advice. Müridoğlu attended art history lectures at the Louvre and aesthetics at the Sorbonne, and for his practical work went to the studio of the sculptor Marcel Gimond, whose work he admired; he also studied at the private Académie Colarossi. He returned to Turkey in early 1932. In April of that year he was appointed drawing teacher at a lycée in Samsun, and he taught there until 1936. In September 1932 an exhibition in which he took part, a group show of work by friends and teachers, opened in a pavilion at the entrance to Gülhane Park. According to other accounts, his first solo exhibition, devoted to designs for monuments, took place at the same time; the accounts differ. He was among the founders of the artists’ association the D Group and contributed to the magazine Yeni Adam.

In 1936 Müridoğlu worked as a sculptor at the Istanbul Archaeological Museum and headed its workshop for sculpture and plaster casting. He then taught briefly at the Gazi Institute of Education in Ankara, from 1939, and returned to the Academy as a teacher. From 1947 to 1949 he again lived in Paris. After his return he was given his own studio at the Academy, and in 1955 he opened a workshop for practical instruction in woodworking. He became a professor in 1969. He retired in 1971 (according to other accounts, in 1974) but went on taking part in exhibitions.

Monuments make up a considerable part of his work. With Ali Hadi Bara he made the Barbaros Monument in Beşiktaş, unveiled in 1942, although other accounts say the work was carried out in 1941–1943. In 1946 the equestrian statues of Atatürk and İsmet İnönü appeared in Zonguldak. In 1953 he made the reliefs at Anıtkabir, Atatürk’s mausoleum in Ankara, on the west side of the great staircase. Later came monuments to Atatürk on Büyükada and in Muş (both 1965), in Sivas, and in the Istanbul district of Eyüpsultan.

Around 1950, or after 1953 according to other accounts, he made his first abstract sculptures. He gathered materials in nature, tree branches among them, and worked with them. He returned to his earlier, figurative manner after 1975. In my view this turn back deserves a study of its own, but I have found no documents about its reasons. Among the works known by title are “Man’s Head”, “Sitting Woman”, “Twins”, “Yaşamak” (“To Live”, a tree sculpture) and copper reliefs; many pieces are held in the Istanbul Painting and Sculpture Museum. In 1977 he received the Sedat Simavi Foundation award (according to other accounts, in 1979), and in 1981 the Atatürk Art Award.

Zühtü Müridoğlu died in Istanbul on 21 August 1992.