T H E C O N S T A N T I N O P L E Y E A R S

CONTENTS

Foreword

Bahattin Öztuncay

9

Introduction

Ebru Esra Satıcı, Şeyda Çetin

17

Alexis Gritchenko:

Greetings to you, Istanbul!

Dr. Vita Susak

35

In Pursuit of Alexis Gritchenko’s

Years in Istanbul

Dr. Ayşenur Güler

131

Artist’s Biography

303

Exhibited Works and Material

321

17 / INTRODUCTION

My principle is and will be: to live ever more

and keep working against all odds.1 — Alexis Gritchenko, 1943

In the early 20th century, Moscow was an exciting city for an artist to be in. The Ukrainian born painter Alexis Gritchenko2 (1883–1977) was part of the modern art scene and exhibited with avant-garde artists including Kazimir Malevich, Wassily Kandinsky, Vladimir Tatlin and many others. Gritchenko was also an art critic and published articles, books; delivered public lectures, and taught in an art school. He decided to leave Russia to escape the civil war which followed the Russian Revolution of 1917. Leaving Moscow, he arrived in Istanbul in November 1919. Although the Ottoman capital was under occupation, it provided the artist with a relatively safe refuge for the years 1919–1921. Even during this time of difficulty, Gritchenko remained a prolific artist. He left Istanbul not only with numerous artworks but with memories and inspiration more than anything. After leaving Istanbul for Paris he published his memoirs, in Deux ans à Constantinople (Two Years in Constantinople) in 1930. This exhibition “Alexis Gritchenko – The Constantinople Years” considers Gritchenko’s Istanbul artworks in conjunction with his memoirs and embraces the artist’s book as a guide.

To explore Gritchenko’s art in light of his memoirs provides an insight into the artist’s character in addition to his style and technique. As a refugee who came to Istanbul with nothing but his winter coat, Gritchenko’s prose features occasional humor in spite of all the difficulties. Surviving two winters in a foreign city with a humid climate he was not accustomed to, he never once lost his will to live or create. It is almost that Gritchenko’s persistent nature, fondness for Istanbul, and passion for art were an irresistible driving force. His positive attitude towards life would also seem to have contributed to his longevity. He lived until he was 94; longer than most of his contemporaries.

Although Gritchenko’s memoirs serve as an artist’s journal with casual optimism, they also tell the story of a refugee. Some sentences betray strong feelings of nostalgia and homesickness; now and then he likens parts of Istanbul to Ukraine, and mentions how details from certain neighborhoods resemble the scenes in old Russian icons. Sometimes his living conditions were so difficult that he openly laments that he only feels Homo sapiens when holding his brush in hand. Reading Gritchenko’s memoirs in an age where forced migration is a global issue resonates with the situation of displaced peoples today; even a century later. As an immigrant in the first quarter of the 20th century, Gritchenko knew his settlement to be only temporary, just like many other émigré. He looked for ways to leave Istanbul in times of despair and even aspired to go to America for a while but seemed to have abandoned this idea without pursuing it.

In common with many avant-gardists, Gritchenko never trained in an art academy but instead achieved his artistic proficiency by attending private art studios. He possessed, however, considerable knowledge and talent that made him welcome in the various

1 Gritchenko to René-Jean, 1943, 6, IX, Lettres à René-Jean, choisies et presentées par Sylvie Maignan et Jean Bergeron (Paris: Harmattan, 2014), 75.

2 Oleksa Vasylovytch Hryshchenko is transliteration of his name from Ukrainian, and Aleksei Vasilievitch Grishchenko from Russian.

26

Alexis Gritchenko, The Porters of the Golden Horn, lithograph, 35.6 × 38.1 cm, signed. Printed in 1975 after work from the 1920s. Ed. 106/200. Collection of The Ukrainian Museum, New York, USA.

31

April 28, 1920

“Yesterday I wandered through Istanbul, all along

the Golden Horn. I made some sketches of hamals [porters].

What movement! How many images pass by, one after the

other. I had a snack on the burnt ground to rest from the

noise and din of the docks. I drew while contemplating the

powerful contours of the aqueduct, forming an ancient

block. Then I went down again and felt lost among the

colorful sterns of barges and ships, where there is an

indescribable hubbub, where there are desperate cries and

calls, where the wind makes the ropes creak and the masts

rattle, where tarpaulins and sails shake, where people crawl

like crabs, clinging, falling, pushing, gripping the masts...”

—Alexis Gritchenko. Deux ans à Constantinople

34

Alexis Gritchenko, Golden Horn, March 1921, gouache on paper, 31.5 × 35.5 cm, signed and dated. Ömer Koç Collection.

48 / ALEXIS GRITCHENKO - THE CONSTANTINOPLE YEARS

Mosque, looked at the compositions through binoculars, sketched some parts of them, simplifying, highlighting the most important traits instead of copying them as his friend Dimitri (Mitia) Ismailovitch (1890–1976) did,42 commissioned by the Secretary of the American Embassy Gardiner Howland Shaw.43 Gritchenko pursued other goals: A comparison of the mosaic composition “Christ Heals the Apostle Peter’s Mother-in-Law” (Gospel of Matthew 8:14–17) and the light watercolor ‘translation’ done by Gritchenko makes for an eloquent example. It was important for him to capture the balance of color volumes, the emotion expressed in plastic ways, “not as a stencil copy of nature.”44 {p. 111}

The artist dedicated separate ‘hymns’ to Istanbul’s architecture. Massive Byzantine walls and churches presented a good opportunity for tectonic and color constructions that the founder of dynamocolor so loved. In his “Constantinople” {p. 95} the artist could unfold the distant square tower and numerous nearer buildings into flat, geometric shapes; there are no uncontrolled bright colors, no sloppiness; the whole surface is covered with ‘scars’ of minor strokes. The watercolor

“Constantinople” that Gritchenko chose as the cover for his 1964 album looks almost purely abstract… almost. Just as he did in Moscow, the artist did not cross that border, so that the walls of houses, the blue sea far away, and sacred domes can be recognized in the fragments of work. {Fig.

7} He evenly fills with color large and small planes of his watercolors, and reproduces the greatness of simplicity by minimum means. Gritchenko always admired the laconism of icon painting, and this is reflected in his composition with a view of the city where this icon painting originated.

The mosques and minarets of ‘Turkish Istanbul’ also attracted Gritchenko. In “Constantinople Skyline” he turned the abundant architecture of the megalopolis into one blue shadow. Its upper contour with ‘teeth’ and ‘shoots’ of minarets makes the silhouette of the city recognizable. {p.

280} In portraying the street, the artist sometimes submitted to the Eastern multi-coloredness, creating ‘arabesque’

watercolors. {p. 92}. Later, in Paris, Gritchenko’s watercolors would be compared to those of Raoul Dufy who visited Morocco in the mid-1920s. The artists knew one another and Gritchenko dedicated a chapter of his memoirs to Dufy, but this happened

42 Dimitri Ismailovitch // Artists of Russian émigrés: http://www.artrz.ru, date of access: 26 December 2019. Dimitri Ismailovitch (1890–1976) was born in the town of Sataniv in central Ukraine. He received higher education at the military academy in St. Petersburg, and during World War I served at General Brusilov’s headquarters. After the October Revolution, he came to Kyiv and studied at the Ukraine Academy of Art for one year. He came to Istanbul in the same year as Gritchenko, in 1919, but stayed there until 1927 and initiated the founding of the Russian-Turkish Artists’ Society. Later he travelled to New York, and eventually moved to Rio de Janeiro. He worked as a portraitist.

43 Nadia Podzemskaia, “A propos des copies d’art byzantin à Istanbul: les artistes russes émigrés et l’Institut Byzantin d’Amérique,” Histoire de l’art 44 (June 1999): 127–128.

44 Gritchenko, Deux ans à Constantinople, 194.

Fig. 7Alexis Gritchenko, Constantinople, 1921. Cover of the Gritchenko monograph. Paris, 1964.

51

Fig. 9Alexis Gritchenko, The Dervishes, 1920. Deux ans à Constantinople. Paris: Quatre Vents, 1930.

69

Alexis Gritchenko, Istanbul Blue and Rose, October 1920, watercolor and pencil on paper, 29 × 25 cm, signed and dated. Ömer Koç Collection.

82

Alexis Gritchenko, Turkish City, December 1920, watercolor and pencil on paper, 19.5 × 23 cm, signed and dated. Ömer Koç Collection.

Alexis Gritchenko, Scene in Istanbul, March 1921, pencil, gouache and oil on paper, 35 × 34 cm, signed and dated. Ömer Koç Collection.

326

ALEXIS GRITCHENKO - THE CONSTANTINOPLE YEARS

This book has been published on the occasion of the exhibition “Alexis Gritchenko – The Constantinople Years” at Meşher Istanbul, February 07 – May 10, 2020.

First edition, 2020: 750 copies ISBN: 978-975-???

MEŞHERİstiklal Caddesi No: 211Beyoğlu 34433 İstanbul, Türkiye www.mesher.org

PublisherVEHBİ KOÇ VAKFINakkaştepe Azizbey Sokak No: 1 Kuzguncuk 34674 İstanbul, Türkiye www.vkv.org.trCertificate No: 34721

Copyright© Meşher, Vehbi Koç Foundation, and authors 2020

All rights are reserved. No part of this publication may be produced, stored in a retrieval or transmitted in any form or by any means, electrical, mechanical or otherwise, without seeking the written permission of the copyright holders and the publishers. The authors of this book acknowledge that the work is their original creation and that all the opinions are their own and no one else can be held accountable for them, and that there are no parts in their works that could infringe upon the rights of third parties.

Work on the cover: Alexis Gritchenko, Hagia Sophia, 1920, watercolor and pencil on paper, 26 × 20.5 cm, signed. Ömer Koç Collection.

EXHIBITION

CuratorsŞeyda ÇetinEbru Esra Satıcı

ConsultantsAyşenur GülerVita Susak

MEŞHERBahattin ÖztuncayKároly AliottiNazlı Efsa AktarEzgi Göksu ÖztürkmenMert GözörenIraz PolatDeniz SanalSevim Tavus

Design and ExecutionNilüfer H. Konuk

TranslationÇiğdem AsatekinAli BerktayClaire Cahm

ProductionBirim Metal, Serhat ÖztemirÇur Dekor, Akın KaraçurDenge Alçı, Gülali GügercinoğluLamarts Fineart Baskı Atölyesi Güven Çerçeve, Bülent GüvenKlik Studio, Gülay Ayyıldız Yiğitcan ND Reklam, İbrahim EskiköySergikurSG Yapım, Sabri YanıkUmut Cam, İsmail Gelik

Technology SponsorArçelik

Video CreditsReuters, via British PathéThe Byzantine Institute and Dumbarton Oaks Fieldwork Records and Papers International Committee of the Red Cross

LightingKemal Yiğitcan

TransportationSimurg Finearts Logistics

InsuranceRam Sigorta

PUBLICATION

AuthorsAyşenur GülerVita Susak

CuratorsŞeyda Çetin Ebru Esra Satıcı

EditorNilüfer Şaşmazer

Copy-editingMary IşınStephen Oliver

Proofreading Özge Ertem

DesignEsen Karol

TranslationYiğit AdamBeyza AltayÇiğdem AsatekinAli Berktayİvan PavliiSerra Yentürk

Transcription from Ottoman TurkishVural GençEkrem SırmaBengü Vahapoğlu

PaperMunken Pure 115 gsm

FontsMerriweatherMerriweather SansArdeco

Artworks PhotographyHadiye CangökçeVivian van BlerkAras Selim BankoğluVolodymyr GritsykPhoto Service, Montreal, KanadaRostyslav Sekunda

Color SeparationHüseyin ÇetinMenderes Coşkun

PrintMAS Matbaacılık San. ve Tic. AŞ Hamidiye Mah. Soğuksu Cad. No: 3 Kağıthane, 34408, İstanbul, Türkiye T: +90 212 294 10 00kitap@masmat.com.trSertifika no: 44686