Ali Teoman Germaner (Alos)

Ahu Antmen, The Life and Art of Ali Teoman Germaner: Memory of Time, Istanbul 2007, p. 53 & p. 142, illustrated in colour

Ali Teoman Germaner's Untitled is one of the artist's most important and impressive sculptures from the early period of his career. Alos, as he has been called since childhood, was one of only a handful of sculpture students at the Istanbul Fine Arts Academy, beginning his studies in 1948 when he was only fourteen years old. His traditional teaching was replaced by a more contemporary, abstract style with the return of Ali Hadi Bara, Zuhtu Muridoglu and Ilhan Koman (Lot 84) from Paris to Istanbul. These leading Turkish sculptors, who became Alos' mentors, would introduce the most recent art movements to the Turkish art scene and open a metalworking studio to experiment with new materials.

In the 1950s, only few years after the Second World War, Turkey was not importing or exporting iron. The artists would therefore buy scrap metal from the flea markets and create sculptures by molding these together. This was a time of experimentation, exploration and adaptation of new concepts to their art and traditional materials did not grant them enough freedom to express their ideas fully.

Alos had always been interested in the ancient civilizations of the East and the West. He would frequently visit the Ancient Eastern Archaeological Museum in Istanbul, marvelling at the Mesopotamian seals and tablets and the pure and primitive art created by the first Anatolian settlements. In addition to this, he was influenced by the 1920s Constructivist movement, borrowing from its vocabulary of industrial, geometric and angular shapes for his early sculptures.

Drawing from all of these defining elements, Alos would transform them into three-dimensional, abstract and dynamic sculptures. With a mastery of the technique, "...steel would no longer be a rigid, industrial material, but –rather- becoming fine, thin and almost fragile in his hands; he would use his material vertically and horizontally, straight and bent, flat and folded; the linear forms in their interrelating knots changing when we look at them from different angles, providing us with an image rich in visual evocations." (Ahu Antmen, The Life and Art of Ali Teoman Germaner: Memory of Time, Istanbul 2007, p. 52)

Untitled was the only Turkish sculpture selected to enter the First Paris Youth Biennale held at Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville in 1959 which also exhibited works by Anthony Caro and Robert Rauschenberg. It was an international stamp of approval of Alos' outstanding talent. This unique work from 1950s is a representation of the advancement of Turkish sculpture and the remarkable skills of a Turkish artist at the level of international standards.