Güven Zeyrek

Güven Zeyrek was born in Ayvalık in 1935. He completed his elementary education in Dikili Tınaztepe Elementary School in 1948. Zeyrek studied one year at İzmir Saint-Joseph French College between 1949-1950. He completed his secondary education at Balıkesir Necatibey Teacher Training College. In 1957, he graduated from Painting Department at Gazi Institute for Education in Ankara. His instructors at the school were Refik Epikman, Hayrullah Örs, Arif Kaptan, Eşref Üren and Şinasi Barutçu. He settled in İzmir the same year and worked at İzmir Private Turkish College as a Painting and Art History teacher. The artist who held his first solo exhibition at the French Cultural Center in İzmir in 1960, was a member of the jury for the first DYO Painting Competition in 1967. He met Prof. Dr. Süleyman Velioğlu and became a member of the AKATÜNVEL Art Collective in 1983. Between 1985 and 2007, he carried out professional study tours in the museums of Florence, Venice, Nice, Paris, Barcelona, Madrid, Sarajevo, Budapest, Vienna, Prague, Odesa and Sevastopol during his trips abroad, done on various occasions. Güven Zeyrek passed away in 2021 at the age of 86.