Ara Güler and Salvador Dalí

Turkish photographer of Armenian origin Ara Güler and the painter Salvador Dalí.

Ara Güler was a celebrated photographer, called “the photographer of the century” in Turkey. He worked for various international publications and made portraits of artists and politicians. His works are held in major museums around the world.

Güler was born in 1928 in Constantinople (Istanbul) into an Armenian family. Until 1934 Turkey had no stable system of surnames. Under a law adopted in 1934, all citizens had to take a surname from a list proposed by the state or create one from Turkish roots. In 1935 Ara’s parents changed the family surname Derderian to Güler.

The standing man holds a camera; the other sits in an armchair.