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Galerist is proud to announce that Semiha Berksoy is invited as participating artist for the 60th International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia, 'Foreigners Everywhere, curated by Adriano Pedrosa. The Biennale Arte 2024 will be held at the Arsenale and Giardini from 20 April to 24 November 2024.
One of the most significant figures in Turkey’s modern cultural history and an extraordinary creative force by any standards, Semiha Berksoy (1910-2004) was, over her long lifetime, one of the leading opera singers in Europe, an actress, performance artist, poet and painter. Born in Istanbul in 1910, Berksoy began her creative career as an actress, taking, at the age of 21, the leading role in the first Turkish sound movie, ‘Istanbul Sokakları’ (‘The Streets of Istanbul’). Soon afterwards Berksoy starred in the first Turkish opera, ‘Özsoy’, performing in front of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of modern Turkey, who became a lifelong fan and supporter. In 1939, for the 75th birthday of Richard Strauss in Berlin, she sang the role of Ariadne in Ariadne auf Naxos, becoming the first Turkish prima donna to perform on stage in Europe. Back in Turkey, she worked with Carl Ebert in helping found and inspire the Turkish State Opera and Ballet. Berksoy painted throughout her life, having studied art as a teenager, but painting was for her, until late in her life, an intensely private affair.
An autodidact, self-mythologizer and mystic, the works, expressed in a powerfully immediate and emotive style, comprise a compelling visual diary of both Berksoy’s storied career and her vital and turbulent inner world. Favorite and significant characters and scenes from operas and plays are depicted, as are, elsewhere, deeply personal and sometimes painful subjects, amongst them; her late mother, the death of her baby sister and the great unrequited love of her life, the avant-garde poet Nâzım Hikmet (1902–1963), persecuted by the Turkish state in the 1940s for his communist beliefs. When Berksoy scaled back her music and performance work later in life, she was able to spend more time painting and staged her first solo art show in 1969.
One of the most significant figures in Turkey’s modern cultural history and an extraordinary creative force by any standards, Semiha Berksoy (1910-2004) was, over her long lifetime, one of the leading opera singers in Europe, an actress, performance artist, poet and painter. Born in Istanbul in 1910, Berksoy began her creative career as an actress, taking, at the age of 21, the leading role in the first Turkish sound movie, ‘Istanbul Sokakları’ (‘The Streets of Istanbul’). Soon afterwards Berksoy starred in the first Turkish opera, ‘Özsoy’, performing in front of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of modern Turkey, who became a lifelong fan and supporter. In 1939, for the 75th birthday of Richard Strauss in Berlin, she sang the role of Ariadne in Ariadne auf Naxos, becoming the first Turkish prima donna to perform on stage in Europe. Back in Turkey, she worked with Carl Ebert in helping found and inspire the Turkish State Opera and Ballet. Berksoy painted throughout her life, having studied art as a teenager, but painting was for her, until late in her life, an intensely private affair.
An autodidact, self-mythologizer and mystic, the works, expressed in a powerfully immediate and emotive style, comprise a compelling visual diary of both Berksoy’s storied career and her vital and turbulent inner world. Favorite and significant characters and scenes from operas and plays are depicted, as are, elsewhere, deeply personal and sometimes painful subjects, amongst them; her late mother, the death of her baby sister and the great unrequited love of her life, the avant-garde poet Nâzım Hikmet (1902–1963), persecuted by the Turkish state in the 1940s for his communist beliefs. When Berksoy scaled back her music and performance work later in life, she was able to spend more time painting and staged her first solo art show in 1969.
February 5, 2024