Turkish Painting: In the Pursuit of Modernism

16 September 2022 - 11 August 2024

Turkish Painting: In the Pursuit of Modernism

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The Sakıp Sabancı Museum Painting Collection is not only a personal collection focusing on a specific period of Turkish painting but also a cultural legacy that provides insight into the early development of painting as an art form in Turkey. In this respect, it is regarded as the continuation of the Sakıp Sabancı Museum Arts of the Book and Calligraphy Collection, reflecting the transformation of visual representation in Turkish art, the changing concepts of art and the artist, and the period of modernisation between the late Ottoman Empire and the early Turkish Republic.

Turkish Painting: In the Pursuit of Modernism follows the development of painting from its adoption as a genre in the newly Westernising Ottoman Empire to the first artists of the Republic, who aimed to create an intellectual foundation for their art. The exhibition presents works from the Sakıp Sabancı Museum Painting Collection in chronological order and renders visible moments of interaction and transformation between different generations.