AFOT’S EMBASSY LECTURE SERIES: “Monuments, Cityscapes, and People: Turkey, 1930-1945 through the lens of Nicholas V. Artamonoff” a lecture by Dr. Günder Varinlioğlu
“Monuments, Cityscapes, and People:
Turkey, 1930-1945 through the lens
of Nicholas V. Artamonoff”
a lecture by Dr. Günder Varinlioğlu
January 25, 2012 at 6:30 pm
Turkish Embassy Chancery
2525 Massachusetts Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20008
Nicholas V. Artamonoff (1908-1989), an amateur photographer from Istanbul, left us a stunning record of the cultural heritage and life in Turkey from 1930 to 1945. His photographs give snapshots of Classical, Byzantine, and Ottoman monuments; streets, shops, and cemeteries; craftsmen, traders, musicians, and children. His photographic work preserved in the collections of Dumbarton Oaks and the Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery focuses mainly on Istanbul, but also documents his trips to Bursa, Izmir, and archaeological sites in Western Turkey. This lecture reconstructs the life and career of Nicholas V. Artamonoff by retracing his steps through his photographs. The rising interest in the cultural heritage of Turkey provides the context in which the young Artamonoff, who arrived to Istanbul at the age of fourteen, became an impressive photographer.
Dr. Günder Varİnlİoğlu came to Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection as the Byzantine Assistant Curator for the Image Collections and Fieldwork Archives in 2008. With a Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania in Art and Architecture of the Mediterranean World, a Master’s Degree from Bilkent University (1998), and a B.Arch from Middle East Technical University (1995), she was well-positioned to make a major contribution to the Research at Dumbarton Oaks. She has done just that, with her research and online exhibit of photographs taken by Nicholas V. Artamonoff, a Russian emigre in Turkey from 1922 – 1947. The collection can be see online at http://icfa.doaks.org/collections/artamonoff. Ms. Varinlioğlu has taught at the University of Pennsylvania, and at Koç University. She already has many publications to her credit, and has somehow found time to do extensive fieldwork in a number of places across Turkey.