“Mübin’s paintings reveal the inner light and the mystery of life.”
Lydia Harambourg
Galeri Nev Istanbul is proud to present the sixth solo show of Mübin Orhon, one of the pioneers of Turkish Modernism who moved to Paris after the Second World War. The exhibition presents a selection of gouache on paper works by the artist from the 1970s.
After graduating from the Finance department of Faculty of Political Sciences in Ankara, Mübin Orhon started his PhD. in Economics at Sorbonne in 1948. Before long, he gave up school and dedicated all his time to painting. He decided to stay in Paris, which at the time had been a sanctuary for artists from all over the world. In the words of Abidin Dino, Paris “in the midst of a horde of artists said to number 50 thousand or so” . Orhon tried to create his own language exhibiting his work in forerunner galleries of the time such as Iris Clert and Lucien Duran.
One of the most important encounters in Orhon’s life is perhaps the one he had with the collector couple Sir Robert and Lady Sainsbury in the 1960s. The couple had a tremendous contribution to his artistic practice and acquired a total of 63 works by him. In addition to becoming one of Orhon’s dearest friends through time, they included his works in their famous collection among other artists such as Degas, Giacometti, Picasso, and Francis Bacon.
The works featured in the exhibition belong to the period when the artist moved to a studio on Boulevard Raspail, from where he could observe the street’s light beams through his window. In these works we can see Orhon’s exceptional interest in the effect of light on colors and his efforts in trying to capture this within the confines of painting.
Artist’s daughter Bénédicte Schribaux, who had the opportunity to observe Orhon’s work very closely, explains his works on paper as the following: “His dazzling paper works that began to develop since the 1970s are the signature that Mübin left in the history of art. These were a synthesis of the intimacy of a man, crouched over the table like his ancestors that made miniatures, with the universal. ”
