Bedri Rahmi Eyüboğlu: “An art as unique as Matisse and as Turkish as our coffee...”

When the Turkish artist and poet Bedri Rahmi Eyüboğlu (1911-75) adapted Arabic script into visual compositions, he was working in the wake of Turkey’s language modernization schemes that replaced Arabic characters with the Latin alphabet. Beginning in the 1940s, Eyüboğlu joined his brother and other colleagues in envisioning a cultural practice of Blue Anatolianism—a humanist philosophy that emphasized the sea voyage of peoples to the Anatolian peninsula as the basis for a diverse nation-state. By the 1950s, Eyüboğlu was celebrated for embracing Eastern and Western influences. He gave interviews declaring his desire to create “an art as unique as Persian miniatures and Matisse, and as Turkish as our coffee and tobacco and figs.” His work features enigmatic combinations of folk culture and international cosmopolitanism, including using the traditional medium of mosaic to explore modernist abstraction.

Eyüboğlu received a Rockefeller Foundation grant in 1960, which launched him into a wider conversation about the creation of “nationalistic” and “post-colonial” art. During this key Cold War decade, private American foundations and the U.S. and Turkish governments employed grants and fellowships to shape public opinion on policy that often favored Westernization. The selection of Eyüboğlu as a representative suggests that his colors, forms, and styles readily negotiated the complex terrain of strategic regionalisms and international styles. His Rockefeller funding set Eyüboğlu’s art practice into motion across seas. Beginning in 1961, he held a visiting professor position at UC Berkeley, where he taught courses, mounted exhibitions, and accepted local commissions.

During his time as a visiting instructor at UC Berkeley, Eyüboğlu was commissioned by Cal alumni Roy W. Leeper and Gaylord Hall to create a mosaic for the courtyard of their San Francisco home. In collaboration with his students, Eyüboğlu designed and constructed the mosaic, which was installed in the Hall home and remained there until 2009, when it was removed and donated to UC Berkeley university. With its swooping lines (reminiscent of calligraphic forms such as the vav) forming the eponymous sea strait, The Bosporus engages with modern abstraction alongside Turkish legacies of folk art. Even while far from home, Eyüboğlu sustained the Turkish identity politics he had formulated in the mid-1940s by opting to utilize a traditional medium for a modern art commission.

Below: Bedri Rahmi Eyüboğlu, The Bosporus, 1962, ceramic and glass tile, donated to UC Berkeley campus in 2009. 273 x 80 cm.

Below: photographs of Eyüboğlu with a painted mock-up of The Bosporus, June 1962. Personal photograph collection courtesy of Tom Lyons.

The above photographs of Eyüboğlu during his time in the Bay Area show him using a preliminary, painted mock-up of The Bosporus to test positioning in the outdoor courtyard of Gaylord Hall’s San Francisco home. The piece would then be translated into its final medium of mosaic, highlighting Eyüboğlu’s unique combination of abstract painting and traditional Turkish art forms. In the preliminary work, Eyüboğlu painted the design to mimic the appearance and texture of tile, blending modern and historic influences.

Below: “Displays from 21 Countries Exhibited Here,” The Daily Californian (April 4, 1962). UC Berkeley Archives.

The above 1962 Daily Cal article mentions that Eyüboğlu’s participated in an international exhibit at the Student Union, confirming his presence and artistic activities on UC Berkeley’s campus. The article notes that the event featured works representing 21 countries at a collective value of $54,000, which demonstrates the university and Eyüboğlu’s focus on creating and showcasing international art.

Below: Mehmet Başaran, poet, Bedri Rahmi Eyüboğlu, illustrator, Nisan Haritasi (Map of April) (Istanbul: Varlik Yayinevi, 1960). UC Berkeley Library collection.

Correspondence with American supporters

Over the late 1950s into the 1960s, Eyüboğlu frequently corresponded with Rockefeller Foundation humanities director John Marshall to receive funds and travel documents for his sponsored trip to the United States in 1961. These unpublished letters feature colorful sketches with motifs that resemble both the vav and Blue Anatolian boat imagery of The Bosporus mosaic. The fact that Eyüboğlu repeated these motifs in his work and correspondence, several years before making The Bosporus, suggest that his artist's attention remained fixed on the topic of Turkey's complex formation of national identity throughout his travels.

Above: Bedri Rahmi Eyüboğlu, sketches on letters (a selection), c. 1959-1961, John Marshall papers, © Rockefeller Archive Center. Courtesy of Rockefeller Archive Center.