Baroque on the Bosphorus
Hekimbaşı Salih Efendi Yalı perches like a queen’s ruby underneath the Fatih Sultan Mehmet Bridge, the object of envy for casual boaters who dream of residing in summer mansions. From the back, it...
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All the fun of the fair
The Decorative Antiques and Textiles Winter Fair in London’s Battersea Park is in full swing, with 150 exhibitors putting a huge variety of items on display. In the upstairs mezzanine the gloriously...
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The mid-19th century Alphabet of London includes this entry, and shows the importance of the British Museum's collection from the Lycian city of Xanthos. Elgin's marbles don't get a mention. This...
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St Stephens on the Golden Horn
The once rusting St Stephen of the Bulgars in Balat has opened its doors again after years of silence and then restoration. This extraordinary structure now gleams from tip to toe, with the...
View ArticleKadıköy’s forgotten wonder
Slightly down the street from The Süreyya Opera house, hidden away in a pasaj cluttered with gaudy shops, is the wonderful Kadikoy Cinema, built in 1967 and in store for some unknown changes. This...
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Digital art makes some Noise
On one of these grey Istanbul winter days, I took the metro way out to Maslak to chase a rumour about a particularly bright and exciting exhibition. Spiraling two floors down in Orjin Maslak and...
View ArticleSaving Lady Mary
The National Portrait Gallery in London is trying to raise £6,900 to conserve an important painting of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, the eighteenth-century poet and author of Travels in Turkey, which...
View ArticleErgun 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),...
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The unexpected Kamikaze 1989
This week, I walked into a movie blind. The !f Istanbul Independent Film Festival is ongoing through this weekend, and I’ve been determined to catch as many film screenings as I can fit into my...
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Welcome to Hampstead’s careful lokanta
Turkish cuisine is enjoying a new wave of popularity in Britain but for the last decade residents of London’s Hampstead have been nurturing deep affection for a modest but careful ‘lokanta’ at the...
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Silent witness
Deep in Üsküdar, up on a hill overlooking the sea next to the famous barracks where Florence Nightingale nursed the sick and the dying of another pointless war, lies the Baroque Selimiye Mosque and...
View ArticlePortrait of an artist: İnci Eviner
A star in the Turkish and international contemporary art world, İnci Eviner spoke with me of her great hope for the future as we sipped tea in her high-ceilinged loft studio, hidden in the back...
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Praise for The Palace Lady’s Summerhouse
Congratulations to Patricia Daunt. The Palace Lady’s Summerhouse and other inside stories from a vanishing Turkey has gathered two more glowing reviews from writers impressed by the author’s rare...
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The Fluidity of Memory
Katie Nadworny & Alison Luntz, 'Dreamspace 1', 2016, Pigment Fine Art Print (35mm), 50x70 cm As Cornucopia’s Online Arts Editor, I spend much of my time visiting and reading and writing about...
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Where feelings fly low
The first impression of Under, the Dubai art installation created by the Turkish artist Hale Tenger, and her long-time collaborator musician Serdar Ateşer, is that someone has put a tree in a box. The...
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Portrait of an artist: Mike Berg
Mike Berg arrived in Istanbul shortly after the 1999 earthquake. However, our conversation started with a passionate description of his ranch and the peacefulness he felt in total silence. Mike Berg,...
View ArticleCruel fate
Of all the houses on the Bosphorus that had to be struck by the Vitaspirit, a 74,000-ton 225 metre cargo ship yesterday afternoon, did it have to be the Hekimbaşı Yalı? And not only that but the most...
View ArticleBravura, dreaminess, passion
The Spanish pianist Javier Perianes arrived in İstanbul hotfoot from a lunchtime recital at the Wigmore Hall the previous day, and is to be heartily congratulated for showing no sign of jetlag;...
View ArticleBabylon’s Hanging Gardens come to the Penn
The Penn Museum in Philadelphia has a Gala Night, billed as An Evening on the Fertile Crescent, on Saturday, April 14 to celebrate the opening of its refurbished Middle East Galleries. “For one night...
View ArticleSultan’s photos finally published
This photograph of a ferry carrying visitors to Furness Abbey in Cumbria comes from British–Ottoman Relations through the Yıldız Palace Photography Collection, launched at Olympia on the first day of...
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