Abidin Dino

Abidin Dino
The statue of the painter
Born	Abidin Dino (1913-03-23)23 March 1913 İstanbul, Ottoman Empire
Died	7 December 1993(1993-12-07) (aged 80) Paris, France
Nationality	Turkish
Known for	Painting

Abidin Dino (March 23, 1913 – December 7, 1993) was a Turkish artist and a well-known painter.

Dino was born on March 23, 1913 in Istanbul into a family who loved art. He started drawing and painting at a young age influenced by his family. As a child he lived in Geneve, Switzerland and France for several years with his parents, returning to Istanbul in 1925. Dino began his secondary education at the American highschool Robert College of Istanbul, but dropped out to devote himself to painting, drawing and writing. His articles and cartoons were soon being published in newspapers and magazines, and in 1933 he and five other young innovative painters founded the “Group D”, which held several exhibitions of their work. At around the same time, he illustrated Nazım Hikmet’s books of poetry.

In 1933, the Soviet director Sergei Yutkevich, who had made a film about Ankara, invited Dino to the Lenfil Studios in Leningrad, and with Atatürk's encouragement Dino accepted. In Leningrad, he worked as a scenery designer and assistant director at several film studios, and directed a film called "Miners" in Moscow, Kiev and Odessa. Shortly after returning to Turkey, he went to Paris, France where he worked from 1937 to 1939, meeting such famous artists as Gertrude Stein, Tristan Tzara and Picasso.