Arts:

Nevbahar’s forms of life

by Sibel DORSAN

Her life and works reflect the times and cultures in which she has lived. She has crossed paths with the most famous names of Turkish painting. And yet she has trusted in her powers of observation and persisted along her own chosen route: an urban artist, a virtuoso of geometrical form. As a child prodigy she became known by her first name only, and that is the way it has remained. This is the biography of Nevbahar.

The gouache and dry pastel paintings exhibited at Galatasaray High School in August 1960 could easily have been mistaken for the works of a talented and experienced painter. In fact they had all been produced during the previous few months by a primary schoolgirl known only as Nevbahar.

Nevbahar’s teacher Beşir Alp had not failed to notice the talents of the seven-year old Nevbahar in 1959. After taking a close interest for some time, he decided that more expertise was needed, and contacted his friend Ergun Peker, a graduate of the painting department of Ankara’s Gazi Education Institute. Nevbahar had worked with gouache until then- her very first painting was a still-life in gouache – but under Ergun Peker, she began to use pastels as well. She enjoyed the dry pastel medium which enabled her to work quickly on natural themes.

While most small children paint from imagination, Nevbahar’s paintings were mostly based on observation. The location of the figures, the balance of colour and even her use of perspectives were excellent. Teacher Peker recommended to the family that they should apply for one of the scholarships for talented children which were available at the time.

The development of Nevbahar’s paintings was followed closely for a year and in the summer of 1960 her works were shown to the famous Turkish painters Bedri Rahmi Eyüboğlu and Cemal Tollu. It was this that led to the Galatasary exhibition.

International recognition

In 1960, Nevbahar won a painting competition organized by the popular children’s magazine Doğan Kardeş .In 1961 and 1962 she won again. Meanwhile, she received a silver star in the Daily Worker children’s painting competition in London and a silver cup from the Shankar competition in New Delhi, where she ranked first among 100,000 children from 78 countries.

In 1962, Nevbahar painted in front of the scholarship commission and showed them her previous paintings. The commission consisted of Zeki Faik İzer, Cemal Tollu, Bedri Rahmi Eyüpoğlu and the Assistant Director of the Academy Hüseyin Gezer. It was decided that she should receive special training. Initially, Zeki Faik İzer took responsibility. Nevbahar abandoned gouache and began to use oil paints, but in her landscapes she continued to use dry pastel.

When İzer left for Paris in 1965, Nevbahar came under the wing of Cevat Dereli. According to Nevbahar, Dereli sought to imbue his own approach, imposed limitations on her use of colour. The influence of Dereli and of the noted French painters Braque and Dufy can be identified in her paintings of this era. Early traces of what would become her unique personal form of expression are visible not only in the geometrical structure - which can also be observed in her childhood paintings - and the architectural elements - which were now becoming more evident – but also in her whole way of working, with its strong emphasis on composition.

Paris and Istanbul

Upon graduating from high school in 1969, Nevbahar went to Paris, where she followed the advice of Zeki Faik İzer and entered the Fine Arts department of the Chaplain Midy workshop. She received her diploma two years later. She then went on to receive a year’s training at the Prof. Rohner wall painting workshop” of the Paris State Decorative Arts College, reflecting her inclination towards geometrical superficiality and order, and her consequent interest in the relations between painting and architecture.

Who could be a student in Paris and fail to take notice of the rhythms of urban life? She would sit at cafes and watch the events going on around her, observing the city and drawing it. Perhaps the main contribution of her training in Paris was that it taught her which sides of life to portray, at what level and with what degree of essentiality. During this time, she also had the opportunity to visit museums in London, Munich, Rome and Florence. She then moved back to Istanbul and dedicated herself entirely to painting.

No longer a scholarship student, Nevbahar was free to paint without academic pressure, to participate in joint exhibitions and to hold exhibitions of her own. Her investigations of geometrical order continued, amply nourished by Istanbul’s mosques and other architectural structures, depicted in simple colours and purified forms. In time, the city’s side- streets and squares also made their way onto her canvases.

Real people

As of 1975, a more humanist approach emerges, and Nevbahar’s streets fill up with activity – the pigeons and birdseed sellers of Eminönü in particular. She goes on to turn her attention to Turkey’s bazaars and Istanbul’s street markets, observing their everyday routines and their relations with the environment in a setting. The varying geometrical forms of the awnings and the contrasts between the personalities of townsfolk and villagers do not escape her eye.

Nevbahar had graduated in decorative art from the Applied Fine Arts in 1975, having started from class three. In 1978 she returned to Paris to research the relations between painting and photography. She was to present a master thesis on this issue at the Sorbonne in 1981. She admits to a resemblance between her paintings and the works of the new realists, who are characterised by their use of photography in exploring urban life and culture. But while she sometimes uses photographs, she says, it is mostly as an aid for drawing and memory. Her aesthetics and philosophy are different: she has never adopted a style based on photography.

In 1987, Nevbahar’s 410-page PhD thesis “Research on streets as a plastic-theme” was approved with high marks by a jury made up of Jean Rudel, Pierre Bague, Laueri and Abidin Dino.

Key moments

What interests the urban artist is moments - not any given moment in particular but certainly not the whole history of the street. Rather, the artist’s images constitute sections from daily life. People are not important by themselves, Nevbahar explains, but they are important in relation to their environments.

These paintings cannot be attributed to any school. They are the fruit of the synthesis of many contrasts – West and East, new and old, traditional and universal. Above all, they are produced through the three processes of viewing, photographing and portrayal. Geometrical abstraction and composition are important, but so too is colour. Nevbahar is particularly accomplished at creating warm atmospheres with cold colours such as blue and purple. In an unusual approach to perspective, she also creates depth through the use of colour. Her smooth acrylics and oils, bearing no trace of the brush, are so distinctive that even if she were to forget her signature, we would still recognise the artist at once.

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Pleasing Europe and Japan

Nevbahar has held 39 personal exhibitions and 14 joint exhibitions. The cities where she has exhibited include Paris, Luxembourg, Geneva, Rotterdam, Metz and London as well as seven different cities in Japan. In Japan, an exhibition of her works and those of her sister Neveser Aksoy - another talented child who was educated with a similar special scholarship, toured for three months – went on tour for three months. Paintings by Nevbahar are included in many private paintings both inside and outside Turkey. In addition to the prizes which Nevbahar received while she was a child, she received a mention of honour from the Salon des Artistes Français exhibition in Paris in 1972 and a diploma of honour from the Tenth Cote d’Azur Exhibition in Cannes in 1973.