Güngör Taner, 1941

A student of Nurullah Berk at the İstanbul State Academy of Fine Arts, Güngör Taner attended the Salzburg Summer Academy in 1971. In the history of Turkish art, Taner is regarded as an extension of such early-period Abstract painters as Sabri Berkel, Nejad Devrim, and Zeki Faik İzer as well as of the succeeding generation, predominantly Adnan Çoker and Burhan Doğançay. He says that his paintings are the outcome of “a variety of contrasts in terms of specific motions and rhythms that are used with the aim of achieving an overall harmony”. Dynamic combinations of fields, colors, and lines invest his paintings with a feeling of visual activity.

Taner’s main concern is rhythm, combined with a sense of musicality that arises from his own interest in music. The issue of rhythm is equally applicable to every plastic element that goes into a work: an animated abstract structure becomes increasingly rhythmic and metrical while musical harmony is achieved through the apposition of contrasts.