Ceramist, academician.
She was born in 1934 in
Sürmene district of Trabzon. As the second child of her parents Hamiye
Çolakoğlu moved from Sürmene to Karamürsel at the age of four with her family.
Her favorite game in the farm was building hills of earth and filling them with
water. One year later she went to Istanbul
with her family and started primary school. She visited museums and parks. Two
years later they moved to Ankara.
She could not leave her home due to her sickness. Meanwhile she took painting
lessons from Cemal Bingöl. She wanted to enter Istanbul Fine Arts Academy but
her family prevented her. Instead of Ankara Gazi Education Institute she was
sent to İsmet Pasha Girls Institute. One year later she was transferred to
Atatürk Girls Institute. Minister of National Education Tevfik İleri who came
this school’s graduation exhibition saw a painting of Hamiye and asked her
transfer to Italy.
She had visited Italy earlier for tourism during her return from
Germany.
In 1959 she was sent to Italy
with the scholarship of the Italian government. She worked between 1953 and 54 in Turkish Handicrafts
Association and continued to ceramics workshop in Hakkı İzzet’s Building
Institute in Ankara.
She studied in scenography and painting departments. In 1962 she joined Young
Artists Exhibition in Rome
with her work ‘Toscana Hills’ and received silver medal. Meanwhile she met Nazım
Hikmet. With his encouragement she joined the competition about “The Role of
Youth in the Future of the Universe”, received the prize of “World Travel of
Twenty-two Thousand Kilometers” and traveled to many countries.
She participated to
courses of Technology and Higher Kiln Techniques Education in Florence State
Ceramics Arts
School and History of Arts and Italian
Literature in Perugia
University between 1959
and 63. In
1963 she joined International Ceramics Exhibition opened by American Ceramics
Association in Washington.
There she received the best critics and was accepted to Membership of American
Clay Association.
In 1963 she returned to Turkey
and founded her own ceramics workshop. In the oven built by her teacher İsmail
Hakkı Oygar she realized a wallboard for the entrance of Yiba Bazaar in Ankara/Ulus.
She stayed one year in Israel Artist’s Village in 1965 and continued her
ceramics works there. She opened two exhibitions and received the Balyam Award.
She turned her workshop in Turkey
to an art center in 1966 and took place among the founders of United Painters
and Sculptors Association. She opened her first personal exhibition in 1972 in the new place of
State Fine Arts Academy. Later she gave lectures of ceramics to Private Yükseliş College
students. She did ceramic wallboards for numerous public and private companies
and large sized works in Bozüyük Ceramics Factory and Çanakkale Ceramics
Factory. In 1974 she opened an exhibition in the German Cultural Association.
The same year she joined an applied ceramics symposium in Hungary. In 1982 she received the
Grand Prix of Turkish Labor Bank and in 1998 the title of Turkish Republic
State Artist.
Hamiye Çolakoğlu
established in 1983 in
Hacettepe University Fine Arts Faculty Department of Ceramics. She worked as an
additional academic member in the same department. She continued opening
exhibitions and was selected as the artist of the year by Arts Institute in
1993. She tried to soothe her disappointment of not being able to realize an
artist village with Beyazev in Beysukent. In 1997 she made “Life Tree”
sculpture in Çan and the wallboard of “Science’s Light” wallboard and sculpture
of “Science Tree” in the same year. She joined numerous group exhibitions, international exhibitions over
twenty and opened twelve personal exhibitions at home and abroad.
Hamiye
Çolakoğlu drew attention especially with her compositions and figures she
created using Turkish folk motives. Starting from 1961 she
made many wallboards, sculptures and different ceramic works. She opened
exhibitions and received national and international prizes such as “best
ceramist critics”, “world grand prix”, “artist of the year”, “grand prix”,
“honor prize” and was selected as State Artist. Aside from all these she raised
very valuable students.
