By Enes Kaplan
KYOTO (AA) - Turkish president on Sunday opened a photo exhibition featuring the works of renowned Turkish-Armenian photographer Ara Guler at 800-year-old Tofukuji temple in Kyoto, Japan.
“God willing, we will organize more events that will further boost the ancient friendship of the people of Turkey and Japan throughout the year,” Recep Tayyip Erdogan said, urging both communities to benefit from one another’s historical, cultural and social perspectives.
Erdogan arrived at Osaka city of Japan to hold official talks in line with G20 Leaders’ Summit on Thursday, then he moved to Kyoto where he visited an Ottoman-themed exhibition center and opened Ara Guler exhibit.
Erdogan underlined that Turkey and Japan, two countries located on the eastern and western ends of Asia, both had a rich cultural legacy that they have preserved for centuries. He stressed that it was important to create opportunities from which Japenese and Turkish citizens could benefit.
Turkish president and first lady, Emine Erdogan, were accompanied by Japanese Princess Akiko of Mikasa.
In Japan, 2019 is celebrated as Year of Turkish Culture and Turkey has dispatched ancient Ottoman-themed artifacts to be exhibited in a display titled “Treasures and Tradition of Tulip in Ottoman Empire”, which has drawn more than 170,000 visitors so far.
- A life behind the lens
Guler was born in Istanbul in 1928. Throughout his life, he was a significant global representative of Turkey's creative photography.
He worked as a Near East photojournalist for Time Life magazine in 1956, for Paris Match in 1958, and also for German magazine Stern.
Magnum Photos also published Guler's photos globally, and in 1961, he became the first Turkish member of the American Society of Magazine Photographers (ASMP).
In 1962, Guler was awarded the Master of Leica title in Germany and was featured in a special issue of Swiss Camera magazine, one of the world's leading photography publications.
He also photographed the images for Lord Kinross' 1971 book on Hagia Sophia and the cover photo for a book marking the 90th birthday of Spanish artist Pablo Picasso.
His images on art and art history were published by Time Life, Horizon, Newsweek, and Skira Publishing House.
Guler's photos of the works of famed Ottoman architect Mimar Sinan were published in the 1992 book "Sinan: Architect of Suleyman the Magnificent."
In 2002, he was awarded the Legion of Honor Order of Arts and Letters by the French government, and in 2009 he received La Médaille de la Ville de Paris from the Paris Municipality.
He passed away on Oct. 17, 2018 at age 90. * Writing by Ali Murat Alhas