Semiha Berksoy, 1910-2004

Besides becoming the first women opera performer in Türkiye, Semiha Berksoy is a true pioneer with her body of work spanning more than seventy years in the performing arts, literature and visual arts. Described by the author Ferit Edgü as having “no predecessor or successor,” Berksoy’s multilayered artistic practice can be best described by the term Gesamtkunstwerk. The term corresponds to a plane on which drama, performance, music, painting, poetry, costume, scenography, time, space, life, and other fields of art intermingle and virtually become one, just like in Berksoy’s works.

Expressing her imaginative power through figurative and theatrical forms in painting, she used canvas and later sheets as surfaces to work on. As in “‘Phoenix’ SelfPortrait,” Berksoy painted self-portraits or included herself, her family, and her friends from the art world in her paintings. She interweaved the characters she portrayed on stage with her self and her life with art in a poetic and tale-like style. She also used autobiographical elements and noted details, dates, places, works, and names of people related to her private or stage life. Thus, Berksoy’s works also offer information, references, and codes for understanding the history of culture and the arts in Türkiye. Berksoy’s painting entitled “Feast at the Prison” depicts poet and writer Nazım Hikmet, Hikmet Kıvılcımlı and Kemal Tahir, who were imprisoned in Çankırı Penitentiary during the same period.