Background

Ara Güler was born on August 16, 1928, in Beyoğlu, Istanbul, Turkey. He was the only child of Christian Armenians, living in Istanbul. His father owned a pharmacy but had many friends that belonged to the world of art. Ara came into contact with these people and they inspired him to opt for a career in films/cinema.

Education

Ara Güler attended the Getronagan Armenian High School. About 1950, he studied economics at the University of Istanbul.

Career

In 1950 Ara Güler joined Yeni Istanbul, a Turkish newspaper, as a photojournalist. Then he started working for Hürriyet. In 1958 when Time-Life, an American publication opened its Turkey branch, Ara Güler became its initial correspondent. Soon enough he started to get commissioned by other international magazines, such as Stern, Paris Match, and Sunday Times, London. In 1961, he was hired by Hayat magazine as the chief photographer. In this time, he met Marc Riboud and Henri Cartier-Bresson, who recruited him to join Magnum Photos. Ara was presented in 1961 British Photography Yearbook.

In 1960s, Ara's work was used in books by notable authors as a means of illustration and were shown at different exhibitions around the world. In 1968, his work was displayed at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in a show called, Ten Masters of Color Photography. Moreover, his photographs were also shown in Cologne's fair, Photokina in Germany. Two years later, Türkei, his photography album was published. His images related to art and its history were featured in magazines, like Horizon, Life, Time, and Newsweek.

Ara traveled for photography assignments to countries, such as Kenya, Borneo, New Guinea, India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, Iran and other cities of Turkey. In 1970s, he also took photography interviews with noteworthy artists and politicians, like Salvador Dali, Marc Chagall, Ansel Adams, Alfred Hitchcock, Imogen Cunningham, Willy Brandt, John Berger, Maria Callas, Bertrand Russell, Pablo Picasso, Indira Gandhi, and Winston Churchill. In addition, Ara also directed The End of the Hero, a 1975 documentary based on fiction on a World War I battle cruiser.

Only three subjects got away, Ara said in a 2005 interview: Charlie Chaplin, who refused to be photographed because he was in a wheelchair by then; Jean-Paul Sartre, who lived near where Mr. Guler worked in Paris but nevertheless eluded him; and Albert Einstein, "who died too soon."

Ara Güler was also an author of several publications: "Ara Güler's Creative Americans", "Ara Güler: Photographs", "Ara Güler's Movie Directors", "Sinan: Architect of Süleyman the Magnificent", "Living in Turkey". He died of a heart attack on October 17, 2018.

Achievements

• Ara Güler was regarded as one of the most accomplished documentary photographers of the 20th century and the pioneer of photojournalism in Turkey. He was world famous for his incomparable black-and-white images of the metropolis on the shores of the Bosporus from the 1950s and 1960s. Ara Güler was also well known for his work as a reporter and photojournalist covering political affairs around the world and for his photographic interviews with many prominent politicians and artists of the period, from Ansel Adams, Louis Aragon, John Berger, Willy Brandt, Erskine Caldwell, Maria Callas, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Marc Chagall, Winston Churchill, Imogen Cunningham, Salvador Dali, Federico Fellini, Pablo Picasso, Mother Teresa, etc. In 1999 he became Turkey's Photographer of the Century.
  
  His work has been widely exhibited at the Istanbul Modern Art Museum, the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the National Library in Paris and included in the collections of institutions worldwide, such as Paris's National Library of France, New York's George Eastman Museum, Das imaginäre Photo-Museum, Museum Ludwig Köln, and Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery.
  
  Ara Café, a restaurant in the Beyoglu district of Istanbul, was named after him. Prints of his photographs lined the cafe walls and were reproduced as placemats.

Works

More photos

• photography

  • Porters Waiting for Work in Yag Iskelesi, Istanbul

    1954

  • Atrium of a House, Tophane

    1954

  • An Old Street near Edirnekapi, Istanbul

    1962

  • Istanbul, Turquie

    1954

  • Istanbul, Turquie

    1954

  • L'embarcadère de Yemis, Istanbul, Turquie

    1958

  • Corne d’Or, Istanbul, Turquie

    1956

  • Tepebasi, Istanbul, Turquie

    1958

  • Galata, Istanbul, Turquie

    1972

  • Bread and Gun, Kaleiçi, Ankara

    1970

  • A coffee bar in a Beyoglu arcade

    1958

  • Children playing among the tombstones in the Seyhülislam Yahya Efendi cemetery at Ortaköy, Turkey

    1985

  • A bar in the Beyoglu district

    1959

  • A landing stage in the Salacak neighborhood on the Asian shore of the Bosporus

    1968

  • Waiting for bazaar customers

    1959

  • A Gypsy broom merchant in the Ayvansaray district

    1969

  • Children in the Tophane quarter of Istanbul

    1986

  • The Suleymaniye Mosque in winter, seen from the Galata Bridge

    1955

  • Carrying water in a shanty town above the Eyup district

    1965

  • The enduring charm of the Turkish baths

    1965

  • Yazma scarf fabric set out to dry in the Kumkapi district

    1959

  • Yasar Kemal

  • Winston Churchill

  • Suleyman Demirel

  • Sophia Loren

  • Salvador Dali

  • Salvador Dalí in his suite at the Hotel Meurice in Paris

    1971

  • Pablo Picasso

  • Orhan Veli Kanik

  • Marlon Brando

  • Indra Gandi

  • Louis Aragon

  • John Berger

  • Jacques Prevert

Views

Ara Güler's philosophy on photography was that he attached great importance to the presence of humans in photography and considered himself as a visual historian. According to him, photography should provide people with memory of their suffering and their life. He felt that art can lie but photography only reflects the reality. He did not value art in photography so he prefered photojournalism.

Quotations: "Photojournalists are always confused by photographers. We are not photographers. We are photojournalists."

Membership

Ara Güler was an only Turkish member of the American Society of Magazine Photographers (now American Society of Media Photographers).

Connections

Ara Güler’s first marriage, to Perihan Sarıöz, ended in divorce. His second wife, Suna Taşkıran, whom he married in 1984, died in 2010.

ex-spouse:

Perihan Sarıöz

late spouse:

Suna Güler

Friend:

Orhan Pamuk

Ara Güler had a long collaboration and friendship with the Nobel Prize-winning Turkish author Orhan Pamuk. His photographs were included in the Pamuk's book "Istanbul: Memories and the City" in 2003, and Pamuk wrote the foreword to the 2009 book "Ara Guler’s Istanbul: 40 Years of Photographs."

References

• Photojournalist: The Life Story of Ara Guler Photojournalist, a book by Nezih Tavlas, provides a compelling and in-depth look into the life of Ara Güler (1928-2018).
  2017