Selected Works from Various Periods of Mübin Orhon and Mübin Orhon Through Ara Güler's Lens

Thirty black and white photographs taken by Ara Güler and Mübin Orhon in Paris between 1948 and 1981 are also included in the exhibition.

The exhibition can be viewed between February 20 and April 7, 2001.

Abidin Dino, in an article he wrote after Mübin Orhon’s death, remembered Mübin Orhon, who was still not well known in Turkey but had managed to gain acceptance among the “Paris School” painters and whose works were in collections abroad, by saying, “First of all, there are the paintings he made, and when we look at these paintings, what we see is the sincerity, enthusiasm, color movement, beauty and uniqueness of suffering. There is no other ancestor of this kind in the history of Turkish painting.”

According to Abidin Dino, Mübin Orhon, who “lived a desired and chosen loneliness,” selected works from various periods are being exhibited in Istanbul for the first time in a comprehensive exhibition.

Born in Istanbul in 1924, Mübin Orhon, who came from the family of Grand Vizier Reşit Pasha who declared the Tanzimat Edict, went to Paris to do his doctorate after graduating from the Faculty of Political Sciences. While in Turkey, Mübin Orhon had close relations with the circle centered on Orhan Veli. He started his doctorate in economics at the Sorbonne University in Paris. But soon after, he devoted himself entirely to painting and was only interested in painting until his death.

Mübin Orhon explained his understanding of painting as follows: “In my opinion, what is important in painting is the content of the painting and the means used to reveal this content. The painter has been successful to the extent that these means and content belong to the painter… It is wrong to paint with the idea of ​​making a new painting. The issue is that the struggle between the painter and the painting is dragged into a genuine creation… painting is specific to the painter, it is individual. Its roots are the inner life, society, knowledge, environment, culture, life and humanity of the painter.”

Although Mübin Orhon initially made pattern and figure studies for educational purposes, although not regularly, from the moment he entered the world of painting until the end, he adopted abstract art, which he believed was the common language that could “express humanity to its deepest points.” In his article in the exhibition catalogue, Necmi Sönmez divides Mübin Orhon’s art into the periods of Geometric (1949-1955), Spotty Abstraction (1956-1960), Poetic-Expressionist Abstraction (1961-1970) and Monochrome (1971-1981). He states that the artist, who attracted attention with his passion for geometry in the debate between “geometric-spotty” abstraction in the Paris art environment between 1948-1950, later made paintings that emphasized spotty values, enriched the canvas surface with different textures, and were dominated by dark colors such as gray and black. He explains that the artist, who pursued different visual tastes using the flow technique after 1960, entered a period that can be defined as monochrome after the 1970s, and that he produced togetherness that could only be resolved with the empathy of “seeing eyes” by kneading and shaping his painting on the threshold of different searches without making it an element of his personal life with the “density of image” that is unparalleled in the development line of contemporary Turkish painting.

Ahmet Köksal comments on the artist’s last period in an article he wrote upon the artist’s death in 1981 as follows: “He wanted to make a light of longing or the breath of a Mevlevi music heard in the rays filtering through dark and transparent surfaces as if from an unknown depth, from an unlimited space. In these arrangements, a sensitivity specific to the East, traces of a mysterious worldview were combined with a contemporary narrative.”

One of his friends in Paris, Selim Turan, described his relationship with painting as follows: “He painted very plain paintings with beautiful color harmonies. He painted as if he were praying, without giving room to the slightest fantasy. He erased external images as much as possible and looked for what was fascinated, incomprehensible and absolutely present behind the images.”

The artist, who worked with the most important galleries in Paris, had his works acquired by collector Sir Robert Sainsbury until his death, while he was still alive. This collection of sixty-three paintings is regularly exhibited at the Sainsbury Visual Arts Center, established in 1978 within the University of East Anglia. Mübin Orhon opened his first exhibition in Istanbul in 1967, when he came for military service, at Galeri Melda Kaptana. His second exhibition was held nineteen years later in 1979 at Maçka Art Gallery. After his death, exhibitions opened in Maçka Sanat in 1982 and 1986, and in Galeri Nev in 1992, and especially a special exhibition at Yapı ve Kredi Sanat Galerisi in 1996, which included paintings from the Sainsbury collection, introduced Mübin Orhon to Turkey.

The exhibition held at Millî Reasürans Art Gallery reveals the main lines of Mübin Orhon’s artistic life with paintings selected from different periods.

Millî Reasürans Art Gallery curator Amelie Edgü brings together Mübin Orhon and Mübin Orhon’s works through Ara Güler’s lens, providing the opportunity to observe the two artists together.

This exhibition offers a good opportunity for those who want to get to know this important artist better, with thirty photographs taken by Ara Güler of Mübin Orhon in Paris between 1948 and 1981.