Bedri Rahmi Eyüboğlu’s art lives beyond the canvas in public spaces

ISTANBUL

AA Photo

The works of Turkish modern art pioneer Bedri Rahmi Eyüboğlu extended far beyond the canvas, becoming part of buildings, markets, hospitals, hotels and public spaces in Türkiye and abroad.

From Istanbul to the Mediterranean and from Paris to Brussels, his murals, mosaics, reliefs and stained-glass works brought traditional Anatolian motifs into architecture and continue to preserve his artistic legacy in the urban landscape.

Eyüboğlu, who died on Sept. 21, 1975, at the age of 64, believed that art should be “at eye level with the public,” an approach that led him from the canvas to architectural surfaces and public spaces.

Born in 1911, Eyüboğlu developed an interest in painting at high school and entered Istanbul’s State Academy of Fine Arts in 1929.

He went to France in 1931 and worked at André Lhote’s studio in Paris from 1932 to 1933. After returning to Türkiye, he joined the D Group and became an assistant to French painter Léopold Lévy at the Academy in 1937.

Over time, he moved away from the Cubist and Constructivist approaches of his early career and turned increasingly toward local sources, combining miniature art, kilim weaving, tilework, traditional textile printing and Hittite reliefs with a modern visual language.

His journeys across Anatolia also shaped his work. He observed local people, daily life and folk culture, incorporating village landscapes, traditional clothing, women, roads and other elements of Anatolian life into his art.

Eyüboğlu’s efforts to integrate art with architecture emerged strongly in the 1940s.

For the Lido Swimming Pool in Istanbul’s Ortaköy district, he produced mosaic panels in 1943 featuring women carrying food, parachutes and sailing boats. He described the works as embroidery rather than painting. The panels were later lost following changes to the building.

He also designed a three-part wall panel for the Ankara Opera House featuring two lovers on a flying horse. Together with his wife, painter Eren Eyüboğlu, he created two large mosaic panels for the Etibank General Directorate in Ankara, featuring Hittite-inspired figures.

In Istanbul, his works became part of commercial, residential and public architecture. A 1957, 60-square-meter panel at Doğubank Business Center in Sirkeci incorporated stylized versions of the letters “D” and “B.”

At the Istanbul Manifaturacılar Çarşısı (İMÇ) in Fatih, Eyüboğlu created two panels in 1965. His 35-square-meter “İstanbul Abstract Composition” brought together the city’s silhouette, minarets, seagulls, waves and fish in an abstract composition. A second panel drew on Anatolian women’s lace and weaving traditions.

His work at Aksu Business Center near Karaköy included the exterior “Confectioners Relief,” combining fish, nets and boats with kilim motifs, and the 1965 “Ox Cart” mosaic depicting oxen pulling a traditional cart through an Anatolian landscape.

His collaboration with Vakko began in the 1950s with textile printing and later expanded into large-scale works. Four monumental works originally created for the company’s Merter factory were preserved after the building was demolished and are now displayed at the Vakko Moda Merkezi in Nakkaştepe.
Eyüboğlu also created a 100-square-meter mosaic for the former Samatya SSK Istanbul Hospital, now Istanbul Training and Research Hospital, in 1959.

His architectural legacy extended to hotels. A 1968 relief at the Divan Hotel in Harbiye was preserved during restoration, while the “Pigeons” mosaic at The Marmara Pera in Tepebaşı was completed in 1975.
From Dalaman to Brussels

Eyüboğlu’s art was not confined to cities.

In 1974, during a blue cruise, he painted a fish figure on a flat rock at Taşyaka Cove in Dalaman, Muğla. The site later became known as Bedri Rahmi Cove and remains a popular stop for daily boat tours from Göcek, where visitors take photographs in front of the work.

His international architectural legacy includes a monumental mosaic created for NATO headquarters. Completed in 1959, the approximately 50-square-meter, 10-ton mosaic was presented by the Turkish government to NATO in 1960. It was first installed at the alliance’s headquarters in Paris and later moved to Brussels following the relocation of NATO headquarters. It was transferred again to the alliance’s new headquarters complex in 2016 and remains there.

Eyüboğlu also created stained-glass works for the Turkish Embassy in Bonn, the former capital of West Germany. Following German reunification and the relocation of the capital to Berlin, the works were transferred to the new Turkish Embassy and incorporated into its architecture.

He died in Istanbul on Sept. 21, 1975, at the age of 64.

More than five decades after his death, his works remain embedded in places where people live, work, travel and gather, from apartment blocks and hospitals in Istanbul to a Mediterranean cove and diplomatic buildings in Europe.