Hamiye Çolakoğlu

Ceramic Artist, Academician

Education
Florence State Ceramics Arts School

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.

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