TURHAN SELCUK DIES

One of the leading names in Turkish cartooning, Selçuk was born in the Aegean city of Muğla in 1922. He founded a caricature association with Semih Balcioğlu and Ferit Öngören and worked as a cartoonist for the magazines Şaka, Akbaba, Tasvir and Aydede in 1948.

The following year, he joined the Yeni Istanbul newspaper, for which he drew cartoons and wrote a series of articles on the history of caricature. He adopted the “humor in line” concept of the American cartoonist Saul Steinberg and contended that “graphic humor” was the universal narrative of caricature.

The first exhibition of Selçuk’s work was held in 1951. In 1952, he and his brother, journalist and writer İlhan Selçuk, began to publish the comic magazine 41Buçuk, the first publication of the “1950 Generation.” In 1953, he published the comic magazine Karikatür, followed in 1954 by his first book, “The Turhan Selçuk Caricature Album.” The same year, he joined daily Milliyet as the newspaper’s main cartoonist.

Selçuk returned to Yeni Istanbul in 1969, then transferred to daily Akşam the same year. In 1972, he began drawing weekly panoramic political caricatures for Cumhuriyet. In 1992, an exhibition of his work, entitled “Human Rights,” toured several major European cities.

The winner of many national and international awards, Selçuk’s works have been displayed in museums of caricature in the United States, Canada, Italy, Bulgaria, Switzerland and Poland. He was awarded with honorary doctorates by Cumhuriyet University in Sivas in 1992 and by Anadolu University in Eskişehir in 1997.