Adnan Çoker, 1927-2022

A student of Zeki Kocamemi while in the Academy of Fine Arts, Adnan Çoker has tried to answer the question of how nature could be analyzed throughout his years of practice. In 1953, he organized an exhibition together with Lütfü Günay, another artist, at the Faculty of Language, History, and Geography at Ankara University, generally acknowledged as the first exhibition of abstract art in Türkiye. Çoker’s paintings of this period explored line, rhythm, and tone, in an approach that was neither fully abstract nor entirely cubist. The artist looked for ways in which he could combine an abstract view of traditional Turkish art with European artistic traditions. Upon arriving in Paris in 1955, he discovered Abstract Expressionism. The work named “Limited Body” is from this period. The freely painted stains, textures, and lines reflect his quest for an approach to painting in which a simplicity of structure and color comes to the fore—a style he brought to maturity in his later works.