Ilhan Koman was born in Edirne, Turkey, in 1921. After finishing the Istanbul Mimar Sinan Academy of Fine Arts he went to Paris on a state scholarship for further studies at the 'Academie Julian'. In 1951 he returned to Turkey and taught at the Istanbul Academy until moving to Sweden in 1958. Koman renovated there an ancient sailing boat, M/S Hulda, where he lived and worked on in Drottningholm. He taught at Stockholm Academy of Fine Arts (Konstfackskolan) until the end of his life, in 1986.

Ilhan Koman exhibited his works in many countries, where he is also represented in several museums. In 1965 Koman started his work on inventing diverging geometrical forms. Many of these have kinetic properties, such as flexible 3-D Moebius bands and polyhedra. He developed these forms as prototypes in various materials to be realised in large-scale projects.

Much of his works remain in Sweden as full-scale monuments. His major works in his homeland Turkey are large metal outdoor sculptures in Istanbul ('Akdeniz'/'The Mediterranean' in 4. Levent, 'To Infinity…' in santralistanbul, an untitled work in Taksim, Portal a kinetic monumental piece that used to be in Stockholm Central Station since 1989 and which was brought to Bogazici University in 2008 thanks to the financial support of the Garanti Bank and the 'Pi' series, to be implemented on several campuses of Bogazici University at the end of the year 2008), a wall frieze at Atatürk's Mausoleum, and an untitled bronze sculpture in the Seymenler Park in Ankara.

Ilhan Koman narrates his style and research in the article ‘ON MY APPROACH TO MAKING NONFIGURATIVE STATIC AND KINETIC SCULPTURE’ with Françoise Ribeyrolles in Leonardo, 1979, Pergamon Press, Vol.12, pp. 1-4.