Pera Museum presents its new exhibition, By the Water: The Life and Art of Halil Paşa, a multi-layered visual and historical narrative focusing on the life and artistic production of Halil Paşa, a figure who played a decisive role in the transformation of painting in Türkiye. Curated by Dr. Özlem İnay Erten, the exhibition examines the artist’s practice shaped across different geographies, bringing together archival documents and works from private collections.
Suna and İnan Kıraç Foundation Pera Museum introduces its new exhibition, By the Water: The Life and Art of Halil Paşa, centering on the life and artistic production of Halil Paşa, one of the significant figures in Turkish painting during the transition from the Ottoman Empire to the Republic. Curated by Dr. Özlem İnay Erten, the exhibition addresses Halil Paşa’s creative process across diverse geographies through a narrative intertwined with the artist’s life story.
Tuval üzerine yağlıboya
125.5 x 80.5 cm
Sabancı Üniversitesi Sakıp Sabancı Müzesi Koleksiyonu, SSM 200-0260
One of the pioneers of modern painting in Türkiye
Halil Paşa (1852–1939), one of the most prolific members of the Military Painters Generation, combined academic discipline with an impressionist sensibility and became one of the pioneers of the open-air painting tradition in Türkiye. A key contributor to the development of modern painting in the country, the artist stands out for his approach to the use of light and color and for his mastery of landscape and portrait painting.
The exhibition is structured around Halil Paşa’s education at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris in the 1880s, his national and international achievements, his life in his father Ferik Selim Paşa’s waterside mansion in Beylerbeyi, Istanbul, and his years in Egypt as a guest of Abbas Halim Paşa. The exhibition presents the artist’s production within a chronological framework, addressing various themes such as portraiture, still life, and landscape. By the Water: The Life and Art of Halil Paşa also acquires a documentary quality through archival documents from the Ottoman and Republican periods, press coverage, letters, photographs, and sketchbooks, alongside works loaned from various institutional and private collections.
İstanbul Üçlemesi, 1915
Paravan üzerine yağlıboya
120 x 100 cm
Bozluolcay Koleksiyonu
Fotoğraf: Hadiye Cangökçe
An aesthetic bridge between East and West
By the Water: The Life and Art of Halil Paşa brings together the artist’s contributions to painting, the aesthetic relationship he established between East and West, his position within the Ottoman modernisation process, and his artistic production in the early Republican period, offering these aspects to contemporary audiences. The exhibition is on view at Pera Museum from 5 March to 23 August 2026.
