Hanefi Yeter was born in Bayburt in 1947. He began his education in 1967 at the State Academy of Fine Arts, in the Workshop of Bedri Rahmi Eyüboğlu, and also studied in Eyüboğlu’s private workshop during this period. In 1970, he earned the right to pursue art training at the Académie des Beaux-Arts in Paris; however, due to personal reasons, he was unable to complete this program and returned to Istanbul. He graduated from the Academy in 1972. In 1973, he passed the State Scholarship Examination and began his postgraduate studies at the Fine Arts Academy in Berlin, completing his degree in 1978. Since then, he has held more than 90 solo exhibitions and participated in numerous group shows in Turkey and abroad, including Vienna, Paris, Brussels, Manchester, and several cities in Germany. He became the first Turkish-born artist to open a solo exhibition in East Germany, where his catalogue was published with special permissions. Yeter’s works are held in both national and international museums as well as private collections. He has also carried out significant public works: five murals, two ceramic façades, two mosaic panels, and one sculpture in Berlin, as well as three murals in the city of Darmstadt. Between 2006 and 2012, he produced nearly 100 sculptures and reliefs for shopping malls.
Biography
Selected Exhibitions
Artist Statement
Biography
Hanefi Yeter was born in Bayburt in 1947. He began his education in 1967 at the State Academy of Fine Arts, in the Workshop of Bedri Rahmi Eyüboğlu, and also studied in Eyüboğlu’s private workshop during this period. In 1970, he earned the right to pursue art training at the Académie des Beaux-Arts in Paris; however, due to personal reasons, he was unable to complete this program and returned to Istanbul. He graduated from the Academy in 1972. In 1973, he passed the State Scholarship Examination and began his postgraduate studies at the Fine Arts Academy in Berlin, completing his degree in 1978. Since then, he has held more than 90 solo exhibitions and participated in numerous group shows in Turkey and abroad, including Vienna, Paris, Brussels, Manchester, and several cities in Germany. He became the first Turkish-born artist to open a solo exhibition in East Germany, where his catalogue was published with special permissions. Yeter’s works are held in both national and international museums as well as private collections. He has also carried out significant public works: five murals, two ceramic façades, two mosaic panels, and one sculpture in Berlin, as well as three murals in the city of Darmstadt. Between 2006 and 2012, he produced nearly 100 sculptures and reliefs for shopping malls.
Selected Exhibitions
Artist Statement
Hanefi Yeter’s work exists in a continuous dialogue between the worldly and everyday, and the intellectual and spiritual. In some pieces, he speaks a simple, accessible, and even playful language, engaging directly with daily life. In others, he challenges the viewer to engage deeply with complex artistic ideas, requiring attention, prior knowledge, and reflection. Through layered compositions and intricate narratives, Yeter invites the audience to reconsider familiar perspectives, confront fundamental human concerns, and experience the interplay of opposing forces — joy and sorrow, motion and stillness, day and night, good and evil, clarity and ambiguity. His works encourage exploration, asking viewers to move from broad impressions to details, and to embrace the complexity of human experience. At the heart of his practice is a commitment to human values: a relentless search for meaning, connection, and the nuanced truths of existence.
Artworks
Showing all 2 results
