Beschrijving

The book offers a rich visual journey through the painting collection of the Sakıp Sabancı Museum in Istanbul, showcasing selected masterpieces from its holdings. It highlights significant works across periods and styles, bringing together Western and Ottoman-Turkish, modern and historical paintings, selected to reflect the depth and breadth of the museum’s collection. The reader is introduced to the curatorial vision behind the selection, with high-quality reproductions that allow close appreciation of the artworks’ texture, composition and colour palette.

Moving beyond pure cataloguing, the volume places each work within a cultural and historical context: how the artists engaged with themes like identity, modernity, tradition and cross-cultural exchange. The commentary explores how painters from the Ottoman era through to modern Turkey responded to European influences, local aesthetics and the changing social fabric. In doing so, the book draws connections between art works and broader artistic dialogues — between East and West, tradition and innovation.

Ultimately, the book invites the reader to consider the painting collection as a conversation — not just between paintings and their viewers, but between eras, artistic schools, cultural identities and museum practice itself. The selection reflects how the museum situates its collection to inform and engage, encouraging reflection on what it means to preserve, interpret and display art in a contemporary cultural institution.