NURI IYEM | Two Women

Collection of the artist, Istanbul
Sale: Istanbul, (Location unknown), Charity Auction, 1980s
Acquired from the above by the present owner in the 1980s

Condition: This work is in very good condition. Some minor discolouration to the varnish around the face and head scarf of the left figure. No sign of restoration under UV light. Colours: The colours in the catalogue illustration are accurate, with the overall tonality of the yellows slightly more beige in the original work.
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NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

“Nuri İyem worked on all types of paintings, but women’s portraits are obviously dominant in his art. Among his portraits, portraits of Anatolian women and landscapes with Anatolian women figures are especially memorable. It is generally accepted that Nuri İyem started painting Anatolian women’s portraits in the 1960s, but the first samples of such portraits can be seen in the exhibition “İstanbul, a port city” in 1941. What makes these portraits unforgettable for the audience is their striking simplicity. Just as Bach examined all the possibilities of the art of fugue, Nuri İyem studied all the possibilities of pictorial fiction and expression as he painted his series of Anatolian women in single and trio forms. Women’s faces seem to be following their destiny in his paintings. Just like in Âşık Veysel’s poems, these paintings evoke the land, which is at times fertile and at others infertile. The texture of the Anatolian landscape is carefully handled in each centimetre square of his paintings. All these portraits that bring icons to mind seem to have set sail for an endless journey of facial expressions. 

Ontologically, Nuri İyem was under the deep influence of his elder sister’s gaze, which could not be erased from his memory as he put it. His paintings were marked by such strong inner dynamics. The eyes that got bigger and bigger like the Moon in a dark sky were happy, serene, restless, compassionate, terrorized and asking for affection, but they were never sneaky or ill-minded. To painters, eyes are what words mean for poets. Eyes serve beauty and express a pure and noble reality. Such a representation overlaps with the reality of Anatolian women who verbally and directly express the pain they suffer as though they are enacting a requiem in public. In this sociological nexus, Anatolian women speak with their gazes, so their eyes naturally gain a privilege, peering from their faces wrapped up by their headscarves.”

Özcan Türkmen cited in ‘Nuri İyem on His 100^th Anniversary of Birth with His Portraits’,  Exh. Cat., İstanbul, Evin Sanat Galerisi, Nuri İyem 1915-2015, Portrait, 16 September – 31 October 2015, pp. 98-99



The authenticity of this work has kindly been confirmed by the Estate of the artist, Istanbul.