’Lisbon Memories’ at Sakıp Sabancı Museum

Organized in collaboration with Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation in Portugal, the exhibition introduces the city of Lisbon, a city that is both far and near to Istanbul, through the works of major Portuguese painters that lived between the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century.

"Lisbon Memories from Another City" has been inspired by the exhibition titled "Evocations, Passages, Atmosphere: Paintings from the Sakıp Sabancı Museum Istanbul" put on by SSM and Calouste Culbenkian Foundation in Portugal in 2007.

The paintings of this exhibition portrayed views of the Bosphorus and the sea shore and scenes from Istanbul’s daily life corroborated the fact that Istanbul and Lisbon share lots of common points even if they are situated on the east and west edges of the European continent.

The exhibition has been organized in time for the official visit of Portuguese President Anibal Cavaco Silva to Turkey.

It delineates the analogies between Istanbul and Lisbon, cities that are considered vital points for the meeting of cultures, religions, civilizations and continents.

Istanbul and Lisbon soul mates

"If there is a definition for ’soul mate’ in this world, it must have been invented for Istanbul and Lisbon," said SSM Director Nazan Ölçer. "Otherwise, would the sea that blankets over these cities, rough streets, glorious buildings inherited from great empires, people characterized both with an eternal sincerity and a noble timidity and songs that are chanting the stories of yearning and unreachable lovers resemble each other so much?

Is it only a coincidence that we find traces of these cities in the verses of Portugal’s great poet Fernando Pessoa who at all times narrates about Lisbon, and Yahya Kemal who brought every single district of Istanbul into his poems?"

"Lisbon is a historical city that also plays the muse for poets and is the subject of the Fado singers", said Calouste Gulbenkian Museum Director Jo?o Castel-Branco Pereira, who also attended the opening of the exhibition.

"But today, Lisbon is also the city of the future, development, technology, science and accomplishment just like Istanbul. I sincerely wish that with the help of this exhibition visitors will grow their curiosity about Lisbon and discover the common points between Istanbul and Lisbon, the Turks and the Portuguese," he said.

The exhibition opened Wednesday will continue through July 14.