Description
Book SynopsisIn this vivid portrait of the art world of 1950s Turkey, Sarah-Neel Smith offers a new framework for analyzing global modernisms of the twentieth century: economic development. After World War II, a cohort of influential Turkish modernists built a new art scene in Istanbul and Ankara. The entrepreneurial female gallerist Adalet Cimcoz, the art critic (and future prime minister) Bülent Ecevit, and artists like Aliye Berger, Füreya Koral, and Bedri Rahmi Eyüboglu were not only focused on aesthetics. On the canvas, in criticism, and in the gallery, these cultural pioneers also grappled with economic questionsattempting to transform their country from a developing nation into a major player in the global markets of the postwar period. Smith's book publishes landmark works of Turkish modernism for the first time, along with an innovative array of sourcesfrom gossip columns to economic theoryto reveal the art world as a key site for the articulation of Turkish nationhood at midcentury.
Trade Review"
Metrics of Modernity will prompt new, productive methodological approaches in the field. Notably, art historians might retool the same categories to form a shared ground of comparison that cuts across established regional and cultural boundaries in current art historical scholarship." * H-Net: Humanities and Social Science Reviews *
Table of ContentsContents
Acknowledgments
Introduction. Art and Development: A New Framework for Postwar Art
1. The Semiperipheral Art Gallery: Gallery Maya, Istanbul
2. Democratic Abstractions: Bülent Ecevit on Art and Politics
3. “The First Coup in the Turkish Art World”: The Developing Turkey Competition of 1954
4. The Artist as Agent of Development: Füreya Koral between Turkey and the United States
Conclusion. Building Istanbul Modern: Art and Development in a
Twenty-First-Century Museum
Notes
Bibliography
List of Illustrations
Index
