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Osman Hamdi Bey is stepping back into the international spotlight as the Metropolitan Museum of Art prepares to showcase a rare selection of his works in a major exhibition examining Orientalism and its legacy.
According to a statement from Pera Museum, the Met’s exhibition “Orientalism: Between Fact and Fantasy” will open on June 12 as the museum’s first exhibition centered on Orientalism, bringing together around 180 works ranging from paintings and drawings to photography, textiles, armor, ceramics and metalwork.
The exhibition traces how perceptions of the east were shaped throughout the 19th century through art, cultural encounters, colonialism, imperialism and modernization. Beginning with Napoleon’s invasion of Egypt in 1798, the exhibition builds a broader narrative that extends to the work of Ottoman painter and intellectual Osman Hamdi Bey.
A significant group of Osman Hamdi Bey’s rarely exhibited paintings will be displayed beside works by the renowned French Orientalist painter, Jean-Leon Gerome, and other artists of the period.
The presentation is expected to open up a renewed examination of Osman Hamdi Bey’s relationship with the Western Orientalist painting tradition while also highlighting his distinct position within late Ottoman art and intellectual life.
While the Met introduces Osman Hamdi Bey to a wider international audience, a parallel selection of the artist’s works is also welcoming visitors in Istanbul at Pera Museum.
The collection exhibition explores the many dimensions of the Tanzimat-era figure, whose influence extended beyond painting into archaeology, museum studies and arts education. The Tanzimat period refers to the 19th-century Ottoman reform era that reshaped administrative, educational and cultural institutions across the empire.
Among the works on display are his best-known masterpiece, “The Tortoise Trainer,” along with “Two Musician Girls,” offering visitors a closer look at his visual language, figure composition and unique role in the modernization of the Ottoman empire.
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