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Ergun Çağatay (1937–2018)

It is with great sadness that we must report the loss this week of one of Turkey's truly remarkable photographers.

Ergun Çağtay's magnum opus was his book The Turkic Speaking Peoples (Prestel, 2006), which explores the collosal range of the Turkic world as never before and became the basis for numerous exhibitions around the world. Ergun had travelled 110,000km in the course of 14 years to bring together a massive body of 35,000 photographs from the frozen wastes of Yakut to Lithuania: a project that must have taken enormous resiliance and courage. The extraordinary tour de force, eventually published in Germany, but in separate English and Turkish editions, combines extensive scholarly essays by authorities from around the world with scores Ergun's astonishing images. Christian Tyler, reviewing the book in Cornucopia, described the photographs as 'a feast for the eye… We see not only "ethnic" pictures of Askhabad’s desert market or the old game of boskashi (a mounted struggle for the carcass of a goat), but stunning shots of people, objects and buildings, some of them since destroyed.'

Ergun  was born in Izmir in 1937 and studied at Robert College. He began his career as a journalist after abandoning law studies, but interestingly only took up photography later after his wife had given him a camera in the late sixties. He joined the Paris photo agency GAMMA in 1974. From reporting he became increasingly absorbed in history after stoically survived and overcaming the horrors of a terrorist bomb at Orley Airport in 1983. A gentle, mild-mannered figure with a delightfully dry sense of humour, Ergun will be hugely missed. Many will fondly remember memorable visits to his studio below Taksim Square.

Tributes will be paid at the Namık Kemal Insitute in Mecidiyeköy at 11pm on Sunday, February 18, before the funeral at Zincirlikuyu after the midday prayers.

Our sympathy goes out to family and friends.


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