Ratip Asir ACUDOGLU

Acudoðlu, Ratip Aþir, (1898 - 1958) Born in Ýstanbul in 1898. After military service in World War I, he went in 1918 to the Academy of Fine Arts in Ýstanbul, where he studied under sculptor Ýhsan Özsoy. With the help of his father, he then went to Germany, where he studied at the Akademie der Bildenden Künste in Munich. From Munich he went to Paris, where, after failing to get lessons from Aristide Maillol, he worked independently, inspired by the work of Maillol and Emile-Antoine Bourdelle.

After returning to Turkey in 1925 and passing an examination, he was able to go back to Paris, where he entered the Académie Julian and worked under the sculptors Henri Bouchard and Paul Landowski. He returned to Turkey in 1928 and worked first as an art teacher at Edirne Teachers' College, and then at various middle schools in Ýstanbul until his death in 1958.

His principal works included the monument in Menemen (1932) in memory of Mustafa Fehmi Kubilây, a young officer who was shot in the city in 1930 while ordering reactionary crowds to disperse, the monument to Ýsmet Ýnönü in Erzincan; and the monument to Atatürk at the Faculty of Agriculture in Ankara. He also worked on portrait busts, that of Fahriye Yen being exhibited at the Ýstanbul Painting and Sculpture Museum. (Page : UK)