Eren Eyüboğlu, 1907-1988

Eren Eyüboğlu (originally Ernestine Leibovici) began studying art while still at secondary school in her native Romania. She later attended the Iaşi Fine Arts Academy and went to Paris where she worked in the André Lhote studio. It was here that she met her future husband, the Turkish artist Bedri Rahmi Eyüboğlu. Ernestine adopted the Turkish name “Eren” when she married. A member of the d Group, Eren Eyüboğlu continuously asked herself how to make her painting “better”. Influenced by Cézanne and Matisse during her Paris years, she was particularly attracted to the latter’s approach to color, which she made a part of her own “folkloric” language of expression.

“I never considered Turkey as my second land. Since 1936, Turkey has been my home. In my new homeland, I found many valuable things, which provided me with the motivation to draw, paint and to create; things that I hadn’t known about or seen before.” The artist advances this approach by incorporating vernacular motifs, landscapes and cultural elements in her works.

“Fishmonger’s Shop”, which was done in 1980, bears witness to such influences and their incorporation into the artist’s unique and somewhat syncretic style. The figures in the brilliantly red shop have been reduced to silhouettes and are relegated to positions of secondary importance behind trays of fish which occupy the center of the frame and which give life to the painting.