Özer Kabaş

Özer Kabaş (1934 to 1998) was an artist, teacher and writer born in Mersin who taught in Istanbul for over three decades. He painted in oil and watercolour, made drawings and prints, designed jewellery and shot short films. Most of his paintings show fishermen and sailors at work on the water, with figures, boats and waves layered across the picture.

After an engineering degree from Robert College in 1957, Kabaş trained as a painter at the Yale School of Art under Josef Albers, taking an MFA in 1962. Early paintings such as Exile (1968) place a lone figure in a fez beside the open sea. From 1970, time on Marmara and Paşalimanı islands turned him towards maritime labour, a field he named "sea space". His essays used "montage", "synthesis" and "horizontal and vertical effects" to describe how local culture meets global art.

From 1964 to 1974 Kabaş taught at Robert College. In 1971 the Istanbul State Academy of Fine Arts took him onto its Basic Design staff, and he founded the Urart Art Studio with his brothers. The Academy later became Mimar Sinan University, where he was made professor in 1990. İstanbul Hatırası, his 1967 film, won first prize at the Hisar Short Film Competition. New York University's Grey Art Museum holds his work, and Salt Research keeps his archive.