Mavi Boncuk |
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Memet Fuat wrote the following about Özdemir Asaf and Lavinia poetry in one of his articles: “An unforgettable aspect of Özdemir Asaf was his unforgettable attitudes in the famous literary matinees of the 1960s. He comes in with a very sweet air, sings his poems with his peculiar lisp, bursts into applause, raises both hands to both sides of his head, gives a double-sided military salute, smiles with his big mustache, and ends his show with a poem called 'Lavinia' upon general request.”
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Özdemir Asaf had never been able to tell Mevhibe Beyat about the love he lived in. After winning the first prize, Özdemir Asaf had read his poem to dozens of people on the podium, but he could never tell Lavinia...
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Born in 1925 Mevhibe was the daughter of a governor, Tahsin Bey. His father, one of the single-party bureaucrats, might have given his name after İsmet İnönü's wife. She graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts (Güzel Sanatlar Akademisi), she. She worked as a painting teacher and as the chief stylist of Neyir Triko company for many years. That's why she often goes to Europe, watches fashion shows and visits boutiques. He saw the models there, took the ones he liked, but then he set them aside and created his own designs. By adapting to the country, the conditions, our spirit…
Mevhibe Beyat was a very beautiful woman, she was charming, warm-blooded and intelligent. Dozens of them would run after her. She was the Gilda of her friends at the Fine Arts Academy, Marilyn Monreo by Adalet Cimzoz, and Hisya in Oktay Akbal's story...
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Mevhibe Beyat & Melda Kaptana
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On the other hand, Mevhibe Beyat, whom everyone is in love with, said in her last days that she loved only two people very much. Also, in a letter that Melda Kaptana wrote to her son Ahmet Koman: "One of the two great loves of my life is the painter Edib Hakkı Köseoğlu, the other is İlhan Selçuk!"
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[1] Lavinia is the beautiful daughter of Titus, who was the chief commander of the Roman Empire in Shakespear's work called Titus Andronicus. She is raped by Tamora's two sons and killed by her father Titus.
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[2] She was born in 1927 in Kocamustafapaşa. After graduating from Istanbul Girls' High School and Istanbul University French Philology, she went to Paris to improve her French. In this city, where she had the opportunity to closely examine European art, she established friendships with artists who would form the cornerstones of Turkish painting in the future. Ilhan Koman (Edirne 1921- Stockholm 1986) was among these names, some of whom he knew from Istanbul. She married İlhan Koman in 1951 in Paris[*]. She had a son. After a while, he separated from him and moved to New York.
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When she returned to Istanbul, she founded a workshop called “Urba”. Workshop; then it turned into “Boutique Meldâ” and then “Meldâ Kaptana Art Gallery”.
Lavinia
Sana gitme demeyeceğim.
Üşüyorsun ceketimi al.
Günün en güzel saatleri bunlar.
Yanımda kal.
Sana gitme demeyeceğim.
Gene de sen bilirsin.
Yalanlar istiyorsan yalanlar söyleyeyim,
İncinirsin.
Sana gitme demeyeceğim,
Ama gitme, Lavinia.
Adını gizleyeceğim
Sen de bilme, Lavinia.
Özdemir Asaf (1923-1961)
Memet Fuat wrote the following about Özdemir Asaf and Lavinia poetry in one of his articles: “An unforgettable aspect of Özdemir Asaf was his unforgettable attitudes in the famous literary matinees of the 1960s. He comes in with a very sweet air, sings his poems with his peculiar lisp, bursts into applause, raises both hands to both sides of his head, gives a double-sided military salute, smiles with his big mustache, and ends his show with a poem called 'Lavinia' upon general request.”
Özdemir Asaf mikrofona çağrıldığında gülüşmeler başlardı. Bir güldürü oyuncusu gibiydi Özdemir Asaf. Uzun uzun mikrofonu ayarlar, sessizce seyircileri süzer, tam şiirini okumaya başlayacakken susar, yine seyircilere bakardı sessizce. Kahkahalar dinince aynı şeyleri yineler, sonunda ‘r’leri ‘ğ’ gibi söyleyerek okurdu: ‘Bütün ğenkleğ aynı hızla kiğleniyoğdu / Biğinciliği…’ Seyirciler bir ağızdan tamamlardı: ‘… beyazaveğdileğ.”
Lavinia loved someone else, so Özdemir Asaf could not say not to go, but she was sure that she would go when she said to take my jacket. Mevhibe Beyat never knew this sublime love and this great love was stuck in the lines of Lavinia and in the heart of Özdemir Asaf...
Lavinia[1]
I'm not going to tell you to go.
You're cold, take my jacket.
These are the best hours of the day.
Stay with me.
I'm not going to tell you to go.
You know anyway.
If you want lies, I'll tell lies
You will be hurt.
I won't tell you not to go
But don't go, Lavinia.
I will hide your name
You don't know too, Lavinia.
Mevhibe Merit Beyat (May 2, 1925 - 2007)
Born in 1925 Mevhibe was the daughter of a governor, Tahsin Bey. His father, one of the single-party bureaucrats, might have given his name after İsmet İnönü's wife. She graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts (Güzel Sanatlar Akademisi), she. She worked as a painting teacher and as the chief stylist of Neyir Triko company for many years. That's why she often goes to Europe, watches fashion shows and visits boutiques. He saw the models there, took the ones he liked, but then he set them aside and created his own designs. By adapting to the country, the conditions, our spirit…
Even his distant relative, Oktay Akbal, was in love with her, and it was said that "Hisya" in the story of a beauty he wrote was none other than Mevhibe. This is how he met the poet world. He met young poets such as İlhan Berk, Naim Tiralı, Cavit Yamaç, Özdemir Asaf thanks to Oktay Akbal, who was the editor of Servet-i Fünuın magazine for a while.
Mevhibe Beyat was one of the most beautiful women of her time when she studied at the Fine Arts Academy. Artists, poets, writers, journalists… The list of his lovers was long. Although she left many broken hearts behind, she was the most immortal, the one who touched the hearts of all of us. A platonic lover in his university years would immortalize this love, which he never knew, with the lines he wrote. Even Mevhibe Beyat would hear this poem, maybe everything would change, but this was fate, or she had left the hall while the poem was being read.
She married her academy teacher Edip Hakkı Köseoğlu, İlhan Selçuk, Öztürk Serengil and Muhlis Hasa. In the letter he wrote to his very close friends, Melda Kaptana and Ahmet Koman, before he died, he mentioned Edip Hakkı Bey and İlhan Selçuk as his two great loves.
Melda Kaptana[2], her best friend in life, tells about Lavinia in one part of her memoir called 'I grew up in a Byzantine garden': It was also Hisya. She was the Violetta of the young men who met and spoke at the door of Harikzadegan Apartments in Laleli. It was the name of a famous tango at that time, and the boys would whistle this melody as Mevhibe passed them, smiling. While studying at the Academy of Fine Arts, her architect friends used to call her Gilda. Inspired by Rita Hayworth's movie 'Gilda', which was screened in those years and won great acclaim... She had red-brown, big wavy, shiny and beautiful hair. Justice Cimcoz also called her 'Marlin' because she looked like Marilyn Monroe. She never cared about her beauty. His human warmth, understanding and intuition were above his beauty.
Pictured: Ilhan Selçuk, Mevhibe Beyat, Meldâ Kaptana and İlhan Koman
[1] Lavinia is the beautiful daughter of Titus, who was the chief commander of the Roman Empire in Shakespear's work called Titus Andronicus. She is raped by Tamora's two sons and killed by her father Titus.
1553 Guillaume Rouillé
Melda encountered an educated Turkish community in New York, just like he did in Paris. Talat-Seniha Halman, Tunç Yalman, Fatma Mansur Coşar, Yıldız Kenter and many more people came together in New York. Seniha Halman was doing a Turkish program at the United Nations. Melda Kaptana also sometimes participated in these programs as a speaker. She stayed with her son in New York for five years; During this time she developed her sense of aesthetics. She had the opportunity to get to know American art more closely. She followed closely the fine examples of the art of the period; She watched not only the art of painting, but also the best of classical music, jazz, theater and musicals. She returned to Istanbul due to her father's illness.
Melda Kaptana Art Gallery opened its doors to art lovers with a mixed exhibition (Avni Arbaş, Ferruh Başağa, Aliye Berger, Cihat Burak, Nevin Çokay, Bedri Rahmi Eyüboğlu, Candeğer Furtun, Füreya, Atilla Galatalı, Nasip İyem, Nuri İyem, Jülide Ayfer Karamani, Sabit Karamani, Filiz Özgüven, Rasin, Tiraje, Tangül, Ömer Uluç, Gürdal, Erdoğan Esen, İlhan Koman) on January 30, 1971, as a result of Kaptana's love for art, the insistence of her artist friends, and the need for a private painting gallery that embraces artists in the Turkish painting environment.
The first edition of I grew up in a Byzantine Garden was published by Yapı Kredi Publishing in 2003. In these memories, which take place on the axis of Kocamustafapaşa, Paris, New York, and Nişantaşı, the names who produced the Turkish art of the seventies are followed while the traces of the life line woven with art and friendship are traced. Published by the İlhan Koman Foundation and Kanat Kitap, Galeristler: Art Environment of the Seventies is different from the Byzantine Garden and has been fictionalized in a completely documentary style. In the preface of the documentary book, which was created as a result of the critics, the art community and the readers wanting to explain the gallery period in more detail, Melda Kaptana says:
“There was a need for a documentary reflecting the understanding of art, art-lover-artist relations, and perspective on art of the period we referred to as the seventies. It would be incomplete just to write what I saw myself. It was more accurate and realistic to continue with the anecdotes of my friends who reminded me of what I had forgotten. I thought of asking people who knew the whole gallery to write their memoirs.”
Gallerists: A group exhibition, which was published as a book, was signed in line with this purpose in the Art Environment of the Seventies. In the documentary in question, Mübin Orhon, Orhan Peker, Fikret Ürgüp, Cemil Eren, Yahşi Baraz, Melike Şasa, Adalet Cimcoz, Gaye Baykal Kazancıgil, Salih Acar, Remo Gastaldi, Bülent Erbaşar, Burhan Uygur, Erdal Alantar, who created the art atmosphere of Turkey, Can Değer Furtun, Bedri Rahmi Eyüboğlu, Burhan Temel, Eşref Üren, Can Göknil, Duygu Omağ, Sitare Ağaoğlu, Devrim Erbil, Gülsün Erbil, Binay Kaya, Eren Eyüboğlu, Sezer Tansuğ, Tülin Öztürk, Mehmet Güleryüz, Turan Erol, Cihat Burak, Berna Türemen, Balkan Naci İslimyeli, Oya Katoğlu, İlhan Koman; with his writings, letters and pictures.
In fact, Melda Kaptana's friendship with the aforementioned names was based on her student years from the Academy to the Sorbonne. For him, the Paris years he studied at the Sorbonne University; These were the times when deep-rooted friendships and refined understanding of art were formed and developed. It was the Paris of the post-war era. It was a period when art was in action in a good way and people were reunited with culture without any trouble. In addition to Melda Kaptana, many Turks from the Academy, Literature and Law circles; He had flocked to Paris for training. There were many names from Abidin Dino to Avni Arbaş, from Fikret Mualla to Mübin Orhon and Can Yücel among these students, some of whom came to study with government scholarships and others with their own means. İlhan Koman was one of the Turkish students with scholarships who came to Paris to study.
[*]“It was the second year of İlhan Koman's arrival in Paris. When I knew him, he was making abstract sculptures with plaster, copper sheets and nails in his workshop in Rue de la Grande Chaumiere. In those years, he cared about Picasso and maybe inspired by this, he worked with different materials. I saw her first exhibition at Gallery 8 in Rive Gauche. (….) When I was leaving Paris in August 1951, I personally took some of his stone sculptures to the Denise Rene Gallery due to his shyness. They would keep them in the gallery and put them in group exhibitions.
Mustafa Pilevneli; In I Grown Up in a Byzantine Garden, Melda says the following about Kaptana and the Gallery:
“I know Melda Kaptana from my student years. When I started my student life at Tatbiki in 1957, we used to go to Painting and Sculpture next door or to Istanbul's painting galleries outside of school. In fact, there was hardly any gallery in those years; There was the State Fine Arts Gallery across from Atlas Passage, and Adalet Cimcoz's Maya Art Gallery in Beyoğlu. Gallery I was not opened yet. The place we visited the most - this is very interesting - was Ziyad Ebuzziya's bookstore on Beyoğlu street. Ziyad Ebuzziya, owner of Ebuzziya Bookstore and father of artist Alev Ebuzziya, used to bring examples of European painting to his shop. For example, I saw Picasso originals, Chagals and Dalis there for the first time. I often went to Beyoğlu to see the reproductions I mentioned. In addition to these, there was also a fashion house that I discovered in Harbiye; The owner of the fashion house was Melda Kaptana, whom I knew with a hundred familiarity back then. In his fashion house, the captain used to include the works of some artists and artists from his close circle. However, the reason why he included the works I mentioned in his fashion house was that he was İlhan Koman's wife. Being the wife of İlhan Koman had brought him a lot; He knew the West, he knew the world's art, he knew America, and he took on the task of presenting a culture that was not here, to the society, as he was also a fashion designer. As an artist, as a designer, he was presenting fashion while also decorating his walls with works of art visually. In the sixties, on the corner of the place where you turn to Portakal Art House on the right as you were descending across Valikonağı in Nişantaşı, Melda opened a gallery where the current carpet maker is: Melda Kaptana Art Gallery. This place was at the top of the places I visited; The sixties were when I was just starting to exhibit my works. Melda was interested in my watercolors. Bedri Rahmi's, Orhan Peker's, Eşref Üren's, as well as some old masters could be found in his gallery. To give an example, a Halil Pasha, I will never forget, when I saw the Halil Pashas lying on the floor in rolls, I did not take the envelope when I was paying dear Melda Kaptan for my two watercolor paintings that she had sold very elegantly in an envelope, and I said: 'Instead of an envelope, let me know. If you give me this, can I have this?' On the floor is a Halil Pasha dated 1882. I was able to give two of my watercolor paintings and get a Halil Pasha. This was just one of the things that Melda Kaptana presented to us and to the society in that artistic atmosphere. Over time, I got to know Orhan Peker, who I love very much, in this gallery. Orhan loved Melda very much and exhibited his paintings only in Melda from Ankara. Over the years, I got to know Adnan Varince at Melda Kaptana Art Gallery, we used to go there often with Avni Arbaş, I got to know Ferruh Başağa in the same gallery. I had the opportunity to see the most interesting works of Turkish painting there. While seeing these, Melda always greeted us with her warm smile and love. She is a real lady. His beloved son, Professor Ahmet Koman, whom he is proud of, is making significant efforts to help Turkey recognize İlhan Koman years later. As you know, Ilhan Koman's Retrospective exhibition started to be exhibited at YKY in May. An amazing exhibition. In this way, we all get to know İlhan Koman. I was with İlhan Koman from time to time when he was making the Mediterranean Sculpture in Zincirlikuyu. The father of one of my students, who was a good iron master, helped him a lot in finding metal masters in the construction of the statue. The material of the statue was steel, these steels were specially cut; As they were mounted side by side one by one, the statue emerged.
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Camellia japonica 'Lavinia Maggi'
