Ara Güler Museum

18.11.2022 – 20.08.2023

Bir Avuç Güzel İnsan

Text: Sevengül Sönmez
Translated by: John Shakespeare Dyson

(excerpt)

Ara Güler corresponded with his literary friends over the years, and he kept a number of documents attesting to his relationships with them; in fact, he decorated the walls of his house with pieces of work they had written, and sent to him. These letters, documents and literary contributions are a valuable component of the Ara Güler archives, and a number of items of this kind accompany the portrait photographs in the Bir Avuç Güzel İnsan exhibition.

In the words of Nezihe Meriç, Ara Güler was an expert in the matter of “seeing the unknowable soul of the person he photographed.” In these portrait photographs of literary figures, he lays bare those sides of his subjects’ personalities that are little known – perhaps, even, those secret sides that they would not wish to reveal to anyone. In the faces of these writers we perceive the mischievous prankster hiding behind the serious demeanour, the far-off childhood, the refined sophistication, the romantic feelings, the sense of humour ready to burst out in laughter at any moment. Discoveries of this kind are evident in all Ara Güler’s writer portraits, brought to light by his love of people and his love of literature.

Ara Güler’s field of interest extended beyond the confines of his native land, and when visiting another country he would knock at writers’ doors and take their photographs. Among these portraits, therefore, we see the faces of James Baldwin, Arthur Miller, Antonio Tabucchi, John Updike, Philip Roth, Alberto Manguel and many others, all photographed within “the worlds they had created for themselves”. He would meet up with figures such as Tennessee Williams and William Saroyan, and accompany them on their journeys; the photographs he took of such people record the unforgettable memories these trips left behind them.