The Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality continues its series of exhibitions on pioneering Turkish artists in the revived Art Nouveau gem Casa Botter of Istiklal Street. Kickstarting its 2026 art season, a new exhibition honours the multidisciplinary legacy of artist, author and poet Bedri Rahmi Eyüboğlu (writes İpek Kozanoğlu).
Holding up a mirror to Istanbul’a changing social landscape between 1940s and 1970s, Eyüboğlu weaves a tapestry of Turkish culture by drawing on Anatolian folklore, Byzantine mosaics and Islamic calligraphy. Fusing arts and crafts tradition of the East with modernist experimentations of the West, his works that include sculpture, ceramic, mosaic, engraving, calligraphy and lithography becomes a pastiche of Western and Eastern art.
Born in Görele in 1913, Eyüboğlu was trained in Istanbul Fine Arts Academy (now known as Mimar Sinan University) instructed by renowned Turkish painters İbrahim Çallı and Nazmi Ziya before continuing his education in Paris with Andre Lhote. Though initially exposed to Cubism, Eyüboplu was not impressed by the rigid formalism of this style. Instead he swerved towards the expressionist style of the Fauves and the geometric shapes of abstract expressionism, thus developping his own visual language.
Appointed to Edirne in 1938 and then to Çorum in 1941 as part of the Republican Party’s initiative to train new artists under the Culture Program proved formative. Immersed in rural life, kilim motifs, traditional headscarves and the village life from the coffee houses to weddings became central in his visual vocabulary. Distancing himself from the traditional medium of oil paint, Eyüboğlu started experimenting with natural mediums as sand and wood shavings. His primary subject matter and his style took its most definite shape during these trips.
Fuelled by the influence of the primitive, Eyüboğlu went to Paris again in 1951 to study primitive art at Musée de l’Homme. Turning his focus on murals and mosaics, he created a wall panel for International Brussels Fair in 1958 for the Turkish Pavillion which earned him a gold medal. He made another wall panel for the NATO building in Paris later on. He continued his work in the US after receiving the Rockefeller scholarship, further broadening his horizons.
Bringing forth letters dated between 1954-1970, Casa Botter’s exhibition extends the focus beyond Eyüboğlu’s canvases, instead foregrounding Eyüboğlu’s mastery in seamlessly blending art and written word. A selection of Eyüboğlu’s letters exchanged between his family members as well as known figures such as Nazım Hikmet, Fikret Mualla and Mustafa Pilevneli addressed to and from France, US and Canada are on display. Each envelope also doubles as miniature artworks adorned with recurring abstract motifs of nature and self-portraits, made using different mediums. This exhibition while offering an intimate portrait of the artist also offers a dialogue with the companion exhibition “Yan Yana” taking place at the İstanbul Painting and Sculpture Museum exhibition diagonally cross Casa Botter, featuring works by the artist.
