newspaper, 30 August 1929 During his student years, he worked as an archive clerk at a newspaper to earn a living. Starting with
İleri, he worked later for the dailies
İkdam,
İfham,
Milliyet,
Tan,
Son Telgraf and
Cumhuriyet, writing articles on arts forty years long. He is considered as a good
polemicist. After graduation from the academy, he was appointed assistant manager at the
Turkish and Islamic Arts Museum. Later, he became the director of the museum. During this period, he inserted
Arabic letters —his name "Elif" is the first letter of the Arabic alphabet, which was
in use in the Ottoman Empire and Turkey until 1928, represents "A"— and Turkish motifs into his paintings. He countered to those, who tcritized his art with letters, with "painters like
Braque,
Juan Gris,
Picasso,
Chagall,
Dufy and
Klee also placed
Latin letters in their works". He painted in the art movement of
Impressionism. In 1930, he held his first exhibition at the
Procession Kiosk. He then took part in exhibitions at exhibitions of the "Independent Painters and Sculptors Association". In 1933, he cofounded the art movement
Group D with four other artists. By October that year, the first exhibition of the Group D painters took place, and it made waves. The group held later 15 exhibitions in the premises of the
Halkevi, Academy of Fine Arts and Consulate-General of France, Istanbul until the group's broke up in 1947. In 1939, he took part in the first state exhibition with his portrait of
Mustafa Kemal Atatürk (1881–1938). He served as government commissioner during the archaeological excavations at
Aslantepe Tumulus in
Malatya. In 1940, he went to
Samsun —where Atatürk had set foot in 1919 to start the
Turkish War of Independence, and participated at the second state exhibition with paintings he created there. At a time when the
World War II intensified, he was conscripted for reserve service in
Balıkesir. Commissioned by the
Republican People's Party as a painter, he worked in Balıkesir in 1940. He wrote articles in the daily
Balıkesir Postası and the magazine
Kaynak of the Balıkesir Halkevi. There, he held his second personal exhibition. His participation at mixed exhibitions abroad were in
Budapest,
Athens,
Bucharest,
Moscow,
Brussels,
London and
Paris. Elif Naci held his personal exhibitions followed in 1944, at
Eminönü Halkevi in 1947, in 1949 and in the entrance of
Galatasaray High School in 1951. He was appointed curator of
Fatih Museum in 1953 —the 500th anniversary of
Conquest of Istanbul by
Mehmed the Conqueror ("Fatih Sultan Mehmed"). One year later, he was assigned to the
Topkapı Palace Museum. He held a private exhibition and gave a conference on the Turkish arts in Baghdad</a>, Iraq, where he went as per the cultural agreement. In 1963, he ritered from his post as the assistant manager of the Topkapı Palace Museum. In adetailed exhibition held in 1965, he put his works covering all this periods on display. In the years following 1970, he intensified the exhibition works. After his retirement as a curator, he worked as an archive officer at the newspaper '
Cumhuriyet until his death. Elif Naci authored the books,
On Yılda Resim 1923-1933 (1933) ("Painting in Ten Years 1923-1933"),
Şarkta Resim (1943) ("Painting in the Orient"),
Elif’in 60 Yılı - Resimde ve Basında (1976) ("60 Years of Elif - In Painting and Press") and
Anılardan Damlalar (1981) ("Drops from Memories"). ==Private life==