Naile Akıncı, 1923-2014

Naile Akıncı graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in 1952. Since her academy days, she has adhered to a Cubist-Constructivist language of form that she learned from her mentor Zeki Kocamemi and which can ultimately be traced back to Paul Cézanne. She has made the geographical, cultural, and sociological development of Istanbul’s venerable Eyüp district the subject of her paintings for more than half a century. Through drawings and paintings created from the Pierre Loti vantage point, Akıncı has documented the flora, architecture, and atmosphere of Eyüp as she sees it. These pictures, the earliest completed in 1953, also show the possibilities inherent in an artist’s long-term relationship with nature. They show the viewer not only how a setting may change over the course of time, but also how the artist’s interpretation of a setting may vary with each painting. Akıncı imbues her paintings with unique features of light, color, and detail. With her discerning powers of observation, she reinterprets the boundaries of land and sea, the beginnings and ends of rows of trees, and the relative positions and proportions of mosques and the surroundings. Reflecting different harmonies in tonal variations ranging from blue to green and from earthen to yellow, Akıncı highlights otherwise unnoticed details of the world around her.