Türkiye İş Bankası Painting and Sculpture Museum

Türkiye İş Bankası Painting and Sculpture Museum, a museum opened in 2023 in the Beyoğlu district of Istanbul to exhibit the Türkiye İş Bankası Art Works Collection.

The museum, which displays works by important representatives of Turkish painting art, is located in a historic Beyoğlu apartment building that formerly served as the bank’s Beyoğlu branch on İstiklal Avenue. It was opened on 29 October 2023 as a gift for the 100th anniversary of the Republic of Turkey.

History

Türkiye İş Bankası Painting and Sculpture Museum opened to the public on 29 October 2023 in the historic Boudouy (Bodvi) Apartment at İstiklal Cad. No: 144.

The museum building, dated to 1907, passed into the ownership of Türkiye İş Bankası in 1950; it served as the bank’s Beyoğlu Branch from 1953 to 2016. İş Bankası decided in 2008 to reorganize the building as an art museum. The cessation of activities in the branch and the start of a comprehensive restoration became possible in 2020.

The building was restored between 2020 and 2023 by architect Ertuğ Uçar and Mehmet Kütükçüoğlu and converted into a museum. At the museum’s founding, architect and art historian Gül İrepoğlu served as curator, and museologist Burçak Madran acted as consultant. The opening took place on Republic Day 2023 as a gift for the 100th anniversary of the Republic of Turkey.

The story of the museum building became the subject of the architectural monograph titled “Bina Bina İçinde” (2023), written by architect Ertuğ Uçar and author Feride Çiçekoğlu.

Collection

The Türkiye İş Bankası Art Works Collection consists of works by important representatives of Turkish painting art. It is one of the oldest and largest private art collections in Turkey. The collection, which includes works by more than 900 artists amounting to around 2,799 pieces, began to be assembled from December 1940.

The first three works included in the collection are these three paintings taken from the 1939 State Painting and Sculpture Exhibition: Hikmet Onat’s “Landscape Ortaköy”, Şevket Dağ’s “Inside Rüstem Pasha Mosque”, and Vecih Bereketoğlu’s painting titled “Boat and Houses”. The collection later grew with works taken from exhibitions of the Independent Painters and Sculptors Association, the D Group, the People’s Houses and CHP Student Exhibitions. Works in the collection include Osman Hamdi Bey’s “After Lunch” and Şeker Ahmet Pasha’s “Ayvalı Still Life” paintings. Feyhaman Duran, Hikmet Onat, Namık İsmail, Hüseyin Avni Lifij, Sami Yetik, Hoca Ali Rıza and İbrahim Çallı are also other important Turkish painters whose works are in the museum collection.

For the museum’s opening, the sculpture named Özlem, prepared by Rahmi Aksungur and expressing the swordfish’s longing for the Bosphorus and the blue, is among the works displayed in the museum. During the building’s conversion into a museum, its historic doors were restored and placed under protection, and four of them were transformed into a work of art by painter Fevzi Karakoç and installed in the museum.

The museum’s first temporary exhibition bears the official name of Istanbul. The exhibition, presenting a broad selection of Istanbul‑themed paintings from the collection and containing mostly mid‑20th‑century depictions of Istanbul, was placed on the museum’s 2nd and 3rd floors from its opening for a long duration. The museum’s founding curator Gül İrepoğlu published a book of the same name, prepared from the exhibition, containing 341 Istanbul landscapes.