The Story of the Picture:

Twenty-three days after the liberation of Istanbul, the Republic was proclaimed and Mustafa Kemal Pasha was elected President. He was in İzmir from January 2 to February 22, 1924. There is also Çallı İbrahim among a committee that went to İzmir.

Çallı meets Atatürk and says to him:

- "Will you allow me to paint the portrait of Mustafa Kemal in the hearts of the Turkish nation, Pasha?" says.

Ataturk also:

- "Since you want to draw Mustafa Kemal, who lives in our hearts, there is no need for me to be a model." gives the answer.

Later, Çallı, based on some of his research, creates a painting of Atatürk sitting on an armchair, dressed in civilian clothes.

Oguz Ozdes

Source:  Atatürk's Memories, Kemal Arıburnu, İnkılap Kitapevi 1998. ISBN: 975-10-1392-5. Page: 307

İBRAHİM CALLI  (1980 - 1960)

Born in 1880, painter İbrahim Çallı was 17 years old when he left the small town he was born in and came to Istanbul. Young Çallı did everything in Istanbul, the big city he always dreamed of. Newspaper distributed. He worked as a bailiff at the courthouse. He was invited to Sanayi-i Nefise after he found a way and showed one of the paintings he had made in his spare time to the painter Şeker Ahmet Pasha. There she met Osman Hamdi. He became a great art student. Thanks to this successful student life, Çallı, who won the European exam with the first place, entered the Paris Fine Arts School. Having a successful student life in Paris, Çallı was very impressed by the different movements and liberal understanding of painting there. When he returned to the Academy as a teacher in 1914, he was describing the free spirit he had met in Paris with his 'naked pictures'. Calli, He also tried to instill the libertarian spirit in his students at the Academy. The Çallı Generation, also known as the 1914 generation, undertook the pioneering of a radical change in Turkish painting. This change can be summarized as follows:

Until that day, the pictures made by looking at photographs in closed workshops, away from contact with the open air, were replaced by pictures made in life, in the middle of the street, by the sea. Çallı Generation took to the streets of Istanbul with paint cans on their backs and coffee tables in their hands. This led to the beginning of a new era in Turkish painting. The subjects of the paintings were not far from life. The diversity of subjects, extending from the views of Istanbul to the interiors of homes and reflecting daily life, was the greatest innovation this generation brought to Turkish painting.

Among the painters of the 1914 period, there were those who were as strong as İbrahim Çallı in terms of art. But none of them achieved the fame that Çallı had achieved with his sarcastic words, his satire and his life.

Famous painter İbrahim Çallı is a Turkish painter who produced works in accordance with the impressionism movement after he returned from Paris. In reality, he was practicing an academia of impressionism. He had a light palette, a nimble, nervous brushstroke. İbrahim Çallı had a unique personality. His participation in the exhibitions held at Galatasaray High School was considered a big event every time. Çallı's portrait of İnönü is very famous. He also has well-known compositions on zeybeks and mevlevis. His painting "Magnolias" and his paintings of nude men and women are in the Painting and Sculpture Museum. There is the Painter İbrahim Çallı Primary School in Denizli, after which it is named.

After his retirement, he continued to work and opened various exhibitions. He passed away on May 22, 1960.

Source:  www.turkishpaintings.com

Other Atatürk Works of the Artist