A Soldier-Painter's Full Career, Gathered in Tepebaşı

By the Water surveys the life and work of Halil Paşa, among the most prolific members of the generation known in Turkish art history as the soldier-painters. Trained in technical drawing at military schools, these artists carried Western painting technique into the late Ottoman period. The exhibition does more than line up canvases: it lets a career be followed from beginning to end, including the subjects the painter kept returning to.

The water's edge is one of those subjects, and it also summarises how this generation approached landscape, working outdoors and from direct observation. Reconsidering these painters touches a larger argument about where modern painting in Turkey is said to begin; post-republican generations were long treated as the starting point while the soldier-painters stayed a textbook footnote. The retrospective opened on 5 March 2026 and closes on 23 August 2026 at Pera Müzesi in Tepebaşı. Following the dates as you walk shows how one view changed over decades.