IUE Art Route: Turkish Painting in the Arkas Collection

Date : 13 December 2025-13 December 2025
Clock : 11:00 AM-1:00 PM
Place : Arkas Sanat Alsancak

Explanation :

• The event is free of charge; however, participation is limited.
• Participants are kindly requested to arrive at the venue (Arkas Art Alsancak entrance) 10 minutes before the tour begins.
• To participate, please fill out the application form below.

Application Link: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1SuIw_pD0CsuC8QiMVLb7CJqXQckU378AksWHFvSS9zQ

NOTE: If you have not received a confirmation email and have not been added to the WhatsApp tour group by Friday, unfortunately your registration could not be accepted due to full capacity.

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Tradition and Modernity: Turkish Painting in the Arkas Collection (1920–1970)

With the exhibition Tradition and Modernity: Turkish Painting in the Arkas Collection (1920–1970), Arkas Art Center invites art enthusiasts to rethink the relationship between tradition and modernity in Turkish painting.

Curated by art historian and academic Prof. Dr. Burcu Pelvanoğlu, the exhibition goes beyond classical art history narratives and reveals that the modernization processes of the Late Ottoman (Second Constitutional Era) and Early Republican periods were not disconnected but rather intertwined. Featuring a selection from the Arkas Collection, the exhibition highlights the relationship between tradition and modernity in Turkish painting, demonstrating how artists engaged with movements such as Impressionism, Late Cubism, and Art Déco. It also shows how artists navigated the balance between modernization and local identity during the transition from the Ottoman Empire to the Republic.

Bringing together key figures of Turkish art history, the exhibition traces the influence of the education that members of the “1914 Generation”—İbrahim Çallı, Nazmi Ziya, Hikmet Onat, and Namık İsmail—received at Fernand Cormon’s studio in Paris, while also emphasizing how the plein-air painting tradition of Hoca Ali Rıza and Halil Paşa shaped subsequent generations. Works by André Lhote, mentor to members of the Independent Painters and Sculptors Association as well as artists of the d Group, can be viewed alongside those of Bedri Rahmi and Eren Eyüboğlu, Cemal Tollu, Nurullah Berk, and Hamit Görele. The exhibition also includes works by artists such as Fikret Mualla, Pierre Bonnard, and Léopold Lévy.