Painting the Republic: Ibrahim Calli in Istanbul

Welcome back to AL-MONITOR Istanbul.

Love is in the air — and in the galleries, on the plates and between the pages. As Valentine’s Day approaches, rebellious master of color Ibrahim Calli takes over the historic dockyards of Halic, the romantic Golden Horn. On Bagdat Caddesi, Corvino makes a strong case for candlelight and cacio e pepe. For devoted art lovers, the second edition of the Art Show, with conferences and many galleries at the chic Etiler, is on for the weekend. For those who prefer their romance in verse, we turn to fifteen centuries of Turkish love poetry.

If you want to receive this newsletter or our other new weekly City Pulse newsletters — for Doha, Dubai and Riyadh — sign up here.

Thanks for reading,

Nazlan (@NazlanEr on X)

P.S. Have tips on Istanbul’s culture scene? Send them my way at nertan@al-monitor.com.

Also, don’t forget to follow us on Instagram: @citypulsealm

1. Leading the week: The Color of a Restless Life 

Ibrahim Calli’s delicate landscapes displayed in Istanbul Art Museum (Photo bkz Iletisim)

With his unruly brush, bohemian temperament and unapologetically lush palette, Ibrahim Calli was one of the defining painters bridging the late Ottoman Empire and the early Republic. Calli resisted both academic rigidity and moral restraint, insisting instead on light, movement and a life lived at full chromatic volume.

That restless spirit now takes center stage at Istanbul Art, housed in the historic dockyard of Halic, once dedicated to shipbuilding and repair, now reimagined as a civic space for culture. “The Memory of Color, the Spirit of the Brush, A Passionate Life Lived Through Color: Ibrahim Calli” brings together 64 oil paintings spanning his career, alongside 24 archival photographs.

The exhibition includes Calli’s portraits of Turkey founder Mustafa Kemal Ataturk and journalist Yunus Nadi, situating him firmly within the cultural and intellectual architecture of the early Republic. A highlight is his portrait of Mehmed the Conqueror, a fitting presence in a dockyard long associated with Ottoman maritime power. Nearby, we see peaceful portraits of daily life along the Bosphorus, women chatting to each other

Born in 1882 in Cal, a small town in western Anatolia, Calli arrived in Istanbul as a restless young man and entered the Fine Arts School, then under the influence of Reformist painters such as Seker Ahmet Pasa. Like many artists of his generation, he was shaped by an empire in decline, caught between admiration for European modernity and the anxiety of political collapse. His early works remained grounded in academic discipline, but they already hinted at impatience with convention, restraint and obedience.

That impatience came fully into view during his years in Paris, where Calli absorbed Impressionism as an attitude: painting as immediacy, sensation and atmosphere. On his return, he became a central figure of the so-called 1914 Generation, the artists who pushed Turkish painting beyond studio-bound formalism toward light, color and lived experience.

“Women at the Seaside,” oil on canvas, by Calli (Photo Courtesy of bkz. PR)

Calli also took part in the Sisli Atelier, a state-supported wartime workshop established during World War I to document and glorify Ottoman soldiers, particularly those who fought at Gallipoli. The effort was both propagandistic and deeply symbolic: Artists were enlisted to reimagine heroism at a moment when the empire itself was struggling to survive. For Calli, the experience sharpened his engagement with figures and emotion in battle, providing a prelude to his paintings representing Turkey’s War of Independence.

Wisely, the exhibition resists nostalgia. Instead, it frames Calli as both artist and educator, a figure who shaped generations and helped lay the foundations of Republican-era plastic arts. Encountering his work here, amid iron beams, water and the memory of labor, feels quietly romantic. His famously multicolored palette seems entirely at ease with the textures of time.

📍Where: Istanbul Sanat (Halic Tersanesi) Sishane Caddesi No: 57 Beyoglu

🗓️ When: until April 5

Find more information here.

2. Word on the street: Corvino

Valentine’s Day spirit (Photo courtesy of Corvino)

I first discovered Corvino in Kuzguncuk in 2019 and kept returning for one stubborn reason: It is the only place I know whose cold beetroot soup is better than my own. Love, as ever, grows from minor defeats.

Now Corvino has resurfaced on Bagdat Caddesi, in Suadiye, inside a carefully restored early-20th-century building, opening its doors at the very end of 2025. The room glows with soft lighting and an assured bar. The kitchen delivers vitello tonnato, handmade cacio e pepe, ossobuco with saffron accents and a crisp-layered tiramisu that is my husband’s favourite. A persuasive address for a Valentine’s dinner on the Anatolian side.

📍Where: Bağdat Caddesi No 492A, Suadiye

Find more information here.

3. Istanbul diary

Digital installations over Ramazan Can’s iconic carpets at Anna Laudel Istanbul (Courtesy of Anna Laudel)

• PPSD Weeks Istanbul runs to Feb. 22 at Anna Laudel Istanbul, opening all four floors of the gallery to photography, works on paper, sculpture and digital art. Moving floor by floor from tactile to technological, the exhibition brings together artists including Brigitte Spiegeler, Cansu Yildiran, Ardan Ozmenoglu, Tugce Diri and Sarp Kerem Yavuz.
• Late Bloomer, Zeynep Solakoglu’s first solo exhibition with OG Gallery, is on view from Feb. 5 to March 14. Drawing on myth, fairy tales and a dreamlike visual language, the show reflects on time, transformation and inner rhythm, suggesting that some worlds — and some loves — unfold only on their own schedule.
• New and Newest Music Festival returns to Arter with a focused program of experimental sound and contemporary composition. Featuring emerging composers and boundary-pushing performances, the festival offers a sharp snapshot of music still very much in the making.