The new exhibition “Preserving the Past” coincides with Sadberk Hanım Museum’s 40th anniversary. Curated by the museum’s longstanding curator, Hülya Bilgi, the exhibition offers a journey across the history of Anatolian civilizations through more than 200 remarkable works selected from the Archaeology and Turkish-Islamic Arts coilections of the museum.
The Sadberk Hanım Museum is Turkey’s first private museum. This exhibition aims to present a glimpse of its collection, which has expanded and diversified throughout four decades, to a wider audience through a selection of rare objects from the 6th millennium BC till the early 20th century.
Sadberk Hanım Museum’s extensive collection of more than 19,000 works consists of the Archaeological and the Turkish-Islamic Art sections.
While the former uses terracotta, glass, metal and stone to offer a chronological journey through Anatolian civilisations, the Turkish-Islamic Arts Section encompasses the artefacts from the 8th century to the early years of the Republic of Turkey and focuses particularly on the masterpieces of Ottoman art with objects including Iznik tiles, ship lanterns, silk fabrics and shoes.
Hülya Bilgi is an art historian, museum director and curator. In 1988, she began working at the Sadberk Hanım Museum as a specialist in the Turkish-Islamic Art Section until 2005 when she became deputy director of the museum for two years. She has been director since 2007. Bilgi has compiled catalogues for numerous exhibitions at the museum including Iznik, Ömer Koç Collection, Jewel: Enamelled and Jewelled Objects from the Sadberk Hanım Museum Collection and Skill of the Hand, Delight of the Eye.
Motif
Issue 66, December 2023
Turkey’s Centenary Issue
