In this vivid portrait of the art world of 1950s Turkey, Sarah-Neel Smith offers a new framework for analyzing global modernisms of the twentieth century: economic development.

After World War II, a cohort of influential Turkish modernists built a new art scene in Istanbul and Ankara. The entrepreneurial female gallerist Adalet Cimcoz, the art critic (and future prime minister) Bülent Ecevit, and artists like Aliye Berger, Füreya Koral, and Bedri Rahmi Eyüboğlu were not only focused on aesthetics. On the canvas, in criticism, and in the gallery, these cultural pioneers also grappled with economic questions—attempting to transform their country from a “developing nation” into a major player in the global markets of the postwar period.

Smith’s book publishes landmark works of Turkish modernism for the first time, along with an innovative array of sources—from gossip columns to economic theory—to reveal the art world as a key site for the articulation of Turkish nationhood at midcentury.

Introduction : art and development : a new framework for postwar art
The semiperipheral art gallery : Gallery Maya, Istanbul
Democratic abstractions : Bülent Ecevit on art and politics
"The first coup in the Turkish art world" : the Developing Turkey competition of 1954
The artist as agent of development : Füreya Koral between Turkey and the United States, 1955-1958
Conclusion : building Istanbul modern : art and development in a twenty-first-century museum