Mübin Orhon, 1924-1981

Having graduated from the Faculty of Political Sciences at Ankara University in 1947, Mübin Orhon moved to Paris in 1948 to pursue a PhD. There, he continued his training by studying freestyle drawing at the Académie de la Grande-Chaumière. Orhon never concerned himself with figurative realism. His works are rooted in an understanding of color entirely free of form. The influence of Eastern philosophy, mystical stillness, and Rumi’s spiritual ideas are all present as well, but never reflected formally. It can be said that the artist opened a direct channel to Western abstraction, rather than following the efforts toward abstraction prevalent in Türkiye at the time. It is known that Orhon showed works alongside Sam Francis, Takis, Camille Bryen, Asger Jorn, and Alberto Giacometti in regular exhibitions at the gallery of Iris Clert, during his time in Paris where he spent the most of his life. 

On the canvas dominated by a single color, Orhon makes abstract expression prevail without giving place to geometric forms or fragmentation. The dominant color that governs the surface, and the texture created by the color, compel our attention as the primary elements. The gouache-onpaper works featured in the exhibition are from Orhon’s late period, when he painted with only one or two colors and explored the possibilities of a language based on lyric coloristic abstraction.