FORMATION OF THE COLLECTION OF THE FOREIGN ARTISTS DURING THE ESTABLISHMENT OF ISTANBUL PAINTING AND SCULPTURE COLLECTION
Künye
ÜSTÜNİPEK Ş (2019). FORMATION OF THE COLLECTION OF THE FOREIGN ARTISTS DURING THE ESTABLISHMENT OF ISTANBUL PAINTING AND SCULPTURE COLLECTION. The Turkish Online Journal of Design, Art and Communication, 9(2), 292 - 302. 10.7456/10902100/019Özet
Following the establishment of the Istanbul Painting and Sculpture Museum in 1937, a group of
important figures of the Paris School were taken to the museum collection. Selahattin Refik Sırmalı
Bey, who is the owner of the leading decoration store of the period, took an active role in the
formation of a foreign collection in the museum. It is also known that Léopold-Lévy, who served as
the head of painting department at the Istanbul State Academy of Fine Arts, was a contact for the
introduction of these paintings brought from Paris by Selahattin Refik. This initiative of Lévy, who
was assigned to the organization of the museum after his arrival in Istanbul, made a significant
contribution to the formation of foreign collections, and there is no indication that these works were
purchased from Selahattin Refik Sırmalı Bey in the museum records. The collection involves the
leading names of modern painting like Pierre Bonnard, Maurice Utrillo, Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse,
Raoul Dufy, Andre Derain, as well as Charles Despiau (sculptor), Eduard Kayser, A.Dunayer de
Segonzac with their prints. Foreign artists in the collection are the representatives of modern painting
of early 20th century. Their works in the collection were in the agendum of Turkish press of that period
and during the Second World War they provided a link to follow modernism in art for Turkish painters
who were not able to visit western art centres.