Osman Hamdi Bey And The Americans, Exhibition İn Pera Museum
If it’s your first time in Istanbul, you might not be familiar with Osman Hamdi Bey. A talented painter, famous orientalist, archeologist and museologist, Osman Hamdi Bey was the founder of the Istanbul Archeological Museum.
The exhibition introduces you the intersecting lives of Osman Hamdi Bey, American photographer John Henry Haynes, and German Professor Hermann Vollrath Hilprecht. Throughout the exhibition you will see old drawings and photographs of some of the earliest archeological excavations in Turkey. 19th century photographs by Haynes and paintings by Osman Hamdi Bey of excavations in Nippur and Assos will excite the archeology lovers.
The exhibition is curated by Prof. Renata Holod and Prof. Robert Ousterhout from the University of Pennsylvania and besides impressive paintings and archeological photographs, you will also come across letters, travel journals and archeological artifacts at display here, some of them for the first time.
The unique selection is on loan from the University of Pennsylvania, Boston Fine Arts Museum, Istanbul Archeological Museum, Istanbul Museum of Painting and Sculpture, and private collections. As an additional surprise, two unknown works of Osman Hamdi Bey discovered at the Penn Museum is introduced to art lovers as well.