Nuri İyem valuation

Nuri İyem (1915–2005) was born in Istanbul. As a child he went with his family to Cizre, near Mardin, where his father was posted, and to Shkodër in Albania, before returning to Istanbul for school. In 1933 he entered the Academy of Fine Arts in Istanbul, where he studied under Nazmi Ziya Güran, Hikmet Onat and İbrahim Çallı, and he graduated from the higher painting section in 1944, taking first prize with his painting Nalbant. In 1941 he was among the founders of the Yeniler group, whose first exhibition, Liman, opened in Beyoğlu that year with paintings of fishermen and dock workers and drew wide interest from writers and thinkers. His first solo exhibition opened in Beyoğlu in 1946, the year he showed Nalbant at UNESCO's international exhibition at the Musée d'Art Moderne in Paris. From 1948 he turned to abstraction, mostly of landscapes and objects. He is known above all for his portraits of Anatolian women, and his subjects also include migration from the countryside to the city, workers, gecekondu houses, and landscapes of Göreme and Şile. He made some 3,500 paintings.

His paintings are mostly in oil on canvas or on Duralit board, and include portraits, landscapes, still lifes, interiors and abstractions. A buyer will want the title, date and signature and any exhibition history, and old oil paint should be checked for cracking, flaking and retouching.