Caricaturist and writer (b. 13 July
1902, Bursa – d. 27 February 1947, İstanbul). His full name was Cemal Nadir
Güler. He came from a family who had migrated from Bulgaria. Because of his
family’s economical conditions, he had lo leave school and to work in various
jobs. He sent his first caricatures to the reviews, published by Sedat Simavi,
named Diken and Resimli Dünya, by using the pen name Cemal Nadir.
After a few years, in 1926, he decided to earn his life on caricatures. He
settled in İstanbul and got married there. However, as he could not earn enough
money from caricatures that were published in the review Papağan, he
returned back to Bursa and worked as a shop-sign painter, as a teacher and gave
mandolin lessons. Meanwhile, he published commercial caricatures in the
magazine Sinema Mecmuası and wrote caricatures in the magazines Karagöz,
Köroğlu, Yeni Fikir and Akbaba. After the reform of the alphabet, he
was invited by Selami İzzet Edes of Necmettin Sadak, of the editorial writer of
the newspaper Akşam, and he started to draw caricatures for a newspaper
for the first time.
Besides his caricatures published in Akşam,
Cemal Nadir drew caricatures for the newspaper Son Posta and for the
magazines Karikatür, Yücel, Köroğlu and Babacan. With his
characters such as Ak’
One of his plays titled Yüzkarası (Disgraceful)
was staged at the İstanbul Municipal Theater in 1939. He published a children’s
review called Arkadaş in collaboration with Vedat Günyol in 1941. The
year 2002, which was the 100th annivarsary of his birth, was declared as the
Year of Cemal Nadir by the Association of Caricaturists and a Cemal Nadir
Honorary Award has been held every year since then. The first award went to
Oğuz Aral.
