İsmet Güney
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| İsmet Vehit Güney | |
| Nationality | Turkish Cypriot |
| Field | Many and diverse fields of Arts and Cartoons |
| Works | Kyrenia Harbour |
İsmet Vehit Güney (born. 1932, Limasol), Cyprus is an artist, and cartoonist. He started painting when he was in high school. After graduating from the Teachers Training College, he started working as an arts teacher in 1948. From 1948 to 1977 he attended 'Lefkoşa Erkek Lisesi' studying Art and History. In 1956, he met the famous artist Ibrahim Çallı and worked with him until 1960.
Güney participated had many solo exhibitions as well as participating in group exhibitions both in Cyprus and abroad. In 1967, a scholarship enabled him to study at Belfast Queen's University's Stranmills College. In 1986 he had a grand retrospective exhibition in Nicosia. The artist currently works on graphics and color-separation in North Cyprus.
[edit] Creation of the Cyprus flag
Before the flag of Cyprus was introduced, the flags of Turkey and Greece were used. The current flag was created as the result of a design competition in 1960. Under the constitution, the flag should not include either red or blue colors (the colours of the flag of Turkey and the flag of Greece), nor portray a cross or a crescent. All participants deliberately avoided use of these four elements in an attempt to make the flag "neutral".
The winning design was based on the proposal by İsmet Güney. The design was chosen by Makarios III, the President of the Republic, with the consent of Fazil Küçük, the Vice-President. The white flag was chosen for the young Cyprus as a sign of peace among the two antagonistic communities living there (Greeks and Turks). The map of the island is golden/yellow, for the sake of easier reproduction of what was originally intended to be a colour of copper (symbol Cu), a metal that the island got its name from. Most probably, since there is no brownish-reddish-copper colour in heraldry, the map was changed to golden. The two green olive branches symbolize peace between the two communities of the island.
