THE LIFE AND ACTIVITIES OF SAILOR PAINTER ALI SAMI BOYAR (1880-1967)

Abstract

Ali Sami Boyar was one of the leading painters of the Second Constitutional and Republican periods. Boyar, a naval officer from the Navy School, completed his painting education at Sanayi-i Nefise Mektebi between 1902-1908. He studied with the group called 1914 Generation or Calli Generation in the workshop of Fernand Cormon in Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris between 1910-1914 and returned home after the outbreak of the First World War. During this period, he became one of those who dominated the Turkish painting art, and played role in the foundation of the Inas Sanayi-i Nefise Mektebi in 1914. Boyar, who came to the fore with his museum studies as well as his painting, was the director of the Naval Museum, Evkaf-i Islamiye Museum and Hagia Sophia Museum in the historical process. Especially in the Republican period, he was the painter of the first Republic stamps and coins, he supervised the printing of these stamps and coins in accordance with steel gravure printing method (the Taydus printing method), which was a new method for that period, and introduced this method in the country. Ali Sami Boyar, who painted many paintings with oil paint and watercolor techniques, which he mastered at the same level throughout his life, besides painting, contributed to the history of Turkish art with two books named Naval Museum Catalog and Hagia Sophia and History.