İbrahim Safi
Cityscape
1983
- Medium
- Oil on hardboard
- Dimensions
- 35 × 50 cm
- Viewing
- At the showroom — by appointment
A view of the city seen from above: clusters of trees and a road passing among them in the foreground, a low tile-roofed building at the centre, apartment blocks ranged behind with their pale yellow and cream façades, and the fabric of the city fading towards the horizon. Composed in an impressionist palette with short, fluent strokes, the scene gathers into warm earth tones beneath the greyish blue of the sky. The artist's signature appears at the lower right; the work is dated 1983.
About the Artist
Born in Nakhchivan in 1898, İbrahim Safi (born Rahman Safiyev) studied fine art in Moscow after his first lessons in painting. Leaving his homeland after the Bolshevik Revolution, he settled in Istanbul during the First World War, entered the Academy of Fine Arts (Sanayi-i Nefise Mektebi), graduated in 1923 and continued to work in Namık İsmail's studio until 1930. He held his first solo exhibition in Istanbul in 1946 and, from 1955 onwards, spent some ten years working in various European cities. He became known for the landscapes, still lifes and portraits he painted with the colour and light of Impressionism. He died in 1983 in Istanbul, the city where he had spent sixty-five years of his life.
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