DAĞ, ŞEVKET (1876-1944)
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Şevket
Dağ was born in Istanbul. On graduating from the Academy of Fine Arts in 1897
at the age of twenty-three, he was appointed teacher of art in Galatasaray
Lyc6e. Although essentially a realist painter, he worked with free brush stokes
in the style of Corot. He is celebrated for his paintings of the interiors of
mosques. He took lessons from Osman Hamdi Bey, and followed his master in
painting genre pictures reflecting various aspects of Ottoman life. In addition
to mosque interiors he would also paint scenes in marketplaces, still-life
compositions and the interiors of houses.
In the course of time his work began to be appreciated abroad
following exhibitions in European art centers such as Munich and Paris, and he
was awarded a gold medal in the Munich International Exhibition of 1909. He
later came under the influence of the Impressionists. . Şevket Dağ was one of
the founders of the Society of Ottoman Painters.
After the Declaration of the Republic he was chosen deputy first
for Konya and later for Siirt. One evening he died of a heart attack on the
ferry-boat on his way home to his yalı in
Rumeli Hisar, which still stands today with the relief of a brush and palette
on the facade overlooking the sea. On the fiftieth anniversary of his death the
Post Office issued fifty kuruş stamps bearing a picture of his smiling face.
DURAN, FEYHAMAN (1886-1970)
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Feyhaman Duran was born in Istanbul and entered the Galatasaray
Lycee at the age of nine in accordance with his mother’s wishes. After
graduating from Galatasaray in 1908 he was appointed teacher of calligraphy
(hüsn-i hatt) in the same school. He
was a friend of the poet Tevfik Fikret and a member of the Society of Ottoman
Painters. He was particularly interested in portrait painting and went to Paris
in 1910 through the patronage of the Egyptian Prince Abbas Halim Pasha to further
his studies in this genre. He greatly profited from the teaching of Paul
Richet, professor of anatomy in the School of Fine Arts in Paris. He also
attended the Julian Academy where he learned a great deal from Jean-Paul and
Albert Laurens. In 1913-14 he worked in the Cormon studio in the School of Fine
Arts.
On the outbreak of the First World War he returned to Istanbul by
way of Marseilles and Pireus in the company of Hikmet Bey (Hikmet Onat),
another Turkish painter. In 1919 he contributed to the exhibition opened in the
Galatasaraylilar Yurdu, and was awarded a silver medal by the government for
his portrait of Dr. Akil Muhtar In 1919 he was appointed teacher of art in the
girls’ section of the Academy. He married Güzin Hanim in 1922.
In the same year he was appointed studio teacher in the Fine Arts
Academy, from which he retired in 1951. Although devoting most of his time to
portrait painting Feyhaman Dutan also did paintings of flowers and nudes, but
he was definitely most interested in the portrayal of people, and he had very
little time for non-figurative painting He painted a number of historical
pictures commissioned by the Istanbul Naval Museum.
ERSOY, ORHAN (b. 1928)
Orhan Ersoy was born in Akçakoca.. His
father was a gendarme officer; with the result that although Orhan Ersoy
belonged to an Istanbul family the fact that his father was being continually
transferred from one place to another gave the boy an opportunity of becoming
familiar with every part of Turkey. In the course of his primary and secondary
education he attended schools in various parts of the Country. In 1957 he
completed his studies at the Academy of Fine Arts in the studio of Nurullah
Berk in the department of advanced painting.
The first exhibition to which Orhan Ersoy contributed was a mixed
exhibition organized by the Group of 14 in 1952 after which he contributed
regularly to State exhibitions of painting and sculpture. He also took part in
several exhibitions of painting and sculpture. He also took part in several
exhibitions abroad, including the exhibition of Contemporary Turkish Art in the
USA in 1971. He won awards in the State Exhibition of Painting and Sculpture in
1976 and in the Historical and Touristic Turkey Exhibition organized by Akbank
in 1979. He was teacher of art in the Boy’s School at BoIu from 1958 to 1968,
and since 1968 has been working as an expert and restorer in the Istanbul
Museum of Painting and Sculpture. In 1980 Orhan Ersoy published a book of poems
entitled “Iki Pencere” (Two Windows).
EYUBOĞLU, BEDRI RAHMI (1911-1975)
Bedri
Rahmi was born in Rize, and was both painter and poet He entered the Academy of
Fine Arts in 1928. In 1930 he went to Paris to study the art of painting and
w6rked in the studio of Andre Lhote. Here he met Irene, a Rumanian artist who
had arrived in Paris a year earlier She became his wife, and changed her name
to Eren Eyüboğlu.
While in Paris Bedri Rahmi came under the influence of painters
such as Raoul, Dufy and Matisse. The way Matisse covered his con vases with
flat, unnuanced colors was very similar to the methods employed by Turkish folk
painters. The same approach was adopted by much later students such as Leyla
Gamsız.
Meanwhile the first meeting of the group of painters known as the
“D Group” (the six founders were
Nurullah Berk, Abidin Dino, Zeki Faik Izen Elif Naci Cemal ToIlu and the
sculptor Zühtü Müridoğlu) had been held in the painter Zeki Faik Izer’s flat in
Cihangir in September 1933. Bedri Rahmi joined the group on his return from
Europe. These young artists then did something quite unheard of at the time.
They opened their first exhibition, devoted entirely to drawings, in the Mimosa
hat shop in the Narmanli Yurdu in Beyoğlu. Some of the original drawings from this
exhibition were displayed once again in the exhibition held to celebrate the
fiftieth anniversary of the foundation of the D Group.
When Leopold
Levy was appointed Principal of the Academy of Fine Arts in 1936 he had Bedri
Rahmi appointed his assistant and translator Bedri Rahmi had continued to write
poetry, and he also wrote a number of articles explaining the new type of art.
Later he shook himself entirely free from foreign influence and turned to
Turkish folk art for inspiration. He first of all made accurate copies of the
abstract motifs to be found in kilims, saddlebags and socks, and then adapted
these same motifs to a number of different subjects. He continued for some
considerable time to work under the influence of folk art in an artistic style
quite distinct from that of other painters.
After 1957
he abandoned prints and textiles and turned to mosaic work, not only employing
mosaic techniques in his paintings but also creating actual mosaic panels. He
produced a mosaic measuring 227 m2 for the Brussels World Fair of
1958, which won the highest prize in the exhibition. This mosaic later
completely disappeared. An article which appeared in the Milliyet newspaper in 1982 suggested that at least part of the
mosaic had been found.
Bedri Rahmi
also created a 50 m2 panel for the restaurant in the NATO building
in the Palais de Chaillot in Paris. In the same year he went to America on a
bursary from the Rockefeller Foundation. In 1962 he opened a one-man exhibition
in New York.
A number of outstanding painters have been trained in Bedri
Rahmi’s studio. He was intimately involved in life and living, and his approach
to art is derived directly from life itself. This is an approach inherent in
the nature of the folk, and naturally tends towards a decorative art based on
vividly contrasting colours. It is an approach that distinguishes one object
from the other by means of thick. Contours, that reduces everything to a
geometrical design, and that is careful to leave a completely flat surface,
perspective being employed, as in the old miniatures, only in size relations.
On his return from his last visit to America he turned to purely abstract work,
but he remained faithful to mural painting, merely heightening the brightness
of the colors.
GUILLEMET (1843-1919)
Sultan Abdülaziz took a keen interest
in art, being himself an amateur painter During Münif Pasha ‘s period of office
as Grand Vizier, Abdülaziz, decided to open a school of fine arts, and with the
realization of this plan in mind he invited Guillemet, a celebrated painter of
that time, to take up the position of principal Guillemet arrived in Istanbul
in 1869 but, as the plans for the school failed to materialize, he opened a
private academy of painting and drawing in Beyoğlu and offered lessons in art
to those who applied as students. Guillement also painted portraits of the
sultan who had invited him to Istanbul. In addition to the academy of drawing
which he opened in 1871 he also organized an exhibition in the Trade School at
Sultanahmet. In 1876 he held another exhibition in the academy of drawing in
which he exhibited the paintings he had produced since his arrival in Istanbul
Unfortunately, most of these paintings were destroyed by a disastrous fire
which broke out in the building.
Guillemet painted a number of portraits of people from both court
and town, several of which are now preserved in Dolmabahçe Palace. The Russian
refugees and prisoners who arrived in Istanbul during the war between Russia
and Turkey in 1877 brought with them an epidemic of typhus. The famous French
painter fell a victim to the disease and died in Istanbul in 1880.
GURAN,
NAZMI ZIYA (1881-1937)
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Nazmi Ziya was
born in the Horhor district of Istanbul. His surname is derived from the name
of the Molla Gurani who Painter’s family was descended. After completing his
secondary education Nazmi Ziya entered the School of political science, from
which he graduated in 1901. He did not, however, enter government service,
preferring to enter the Academy of Fine Arts. He had shown an aptitude for
painting from a very early age, and could have entered the Academy much earlier
had his father not refused to allow him to do so.
The death
of his father in 1901 left him free to do as he wished. He had already taken
lessons in painting from Hoca Ali Riza Bey, and he now became a student of
Warnia and Valeri at the Academy. He preferred painting from nature to
following the strict prescripts of a dry academicism. Just at that time, in
1905, Paul Signac, the French pointillist painter, arrived in Istanbul. On
seeing his paintings Nazmi Ziya was immediately attracted to Impressionism.
From that time on Valeri refused to supervise his work on the grounds that he
had become an Impressionist and, following quarrels with the principal of the
school, Osman Hamdi Bey, and with his own teacher Warnia, he was refused the
graduation diploma in 1907.
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After finally succeeding in graduating from the Academy in 1908 Nazmi Ziya went to Paris where he worked for three months in the Julian Academy. In 1909 he entered the Cormon studio, and an exhibition of his work in 1912 was very well received. In 1913 he made a short tour of Germany and Austria.
On his
return to Turkey he was obliged to take up government employment and from 1918
to 1921, and again from 1923 to 1927 he held the post of principal of the
Academy of Fine Arts. He also performed teaching duties in the Academy as well
as running a private studio of his own. During the Armistice period he was
forced to take on various odd jobs in order to subsist, at one time even
working as a shoeshine boy. As principle of the Academy he proved himself a
very good administrator, and the disputes caused by his second exhibition in
Galatasaray in 1925 revealed him as a debater to be reckoned with. His deep and
extensive knowledge was enough to make him a match for anyone. In a study of
this painter, Bedri Rahmi Eyüboğlu remarks that he had never been the subject
of a serious critical study. Even those who talked of his Impressionism never
attempted an analysis of the exact type of Impressionism he represented.
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Nazmi Ziya loved to paint the same scene at different times of
the day, thus studying the same subject under varying conditions of light. He
liked to show how broad daylight eats away the contours of things, and to
reveal objects in a color perspective. But that was only one phase in his
career before and after this particular period he showed no interest whatever
in Impressionism. In his retrospective exhibition of 1937 he exhibited seven
different paintings of the same coffeehouse. An examination of these seven
paintings placed one after the other helped to promote an understanding of his
way of looking at nature and his understanding of color Some considerable time
after his death his works were exhibited once more in what was then the Kadiköy
Halkevi (Culture Canter) and is now the People’s Education Center.
