Ara Güler Museum

18.11.2022 – 20.08.2023

Bir Avuç Güzel İnsan

Text: Sevengül Sönmez
Translated by: John Shakespeare Dyson

As soon as Ara Güler had learned to read, he started reading everything he could lay his hands on. His interest in writing, too, showed itself at an early age – for him, literature was a way of understanding the world and interpreting it to others. Sometimes, his writings are the voice of the silence enveloping the earth; at other times, they are the respirations of the people in the street. It is this connection with literature that determines his outlook on the world, and that draws him towards writers.

Ara Güler said: “The function of a photo-journalist is not just to observe the unfolding of events, but to transmit to future ages, as visual material, a sense of what life was like during her/his time – its forms of artistic expression, its traditions and customs, the activities people engaged in, and their joys and sorrows.” It was his interest in reading and literature, and the accompanying urge to write himself, that motivated him to preserve the memory of contemporary literary figures by taking portrait photographs of them.

“For me, they are not just people who are having their photographs taken: they are also the people who built my world,” he said, and in accordance with this belief he set about getting to know the writers of his time; he photographed them, met up with them and discussed literature with them. In time, he would go beyond just taking these people’s photographs: he would also become their friends.

Ara Güler thought that ‘bearing witness’ to a literary figure involved adding something to whatever they were trying to say. Therefore, his interest in writers’ lives was just as great as his interest in their works – perhaps, even, a little greater. For him, literature was “the business of a handful of admirable individuals,” and it was his wish that others, too, should get to know the people of this kind whom he knew, and for whom he had such affection and respect; thus, he felt the need to record their existence.

“If I had not taken these photographs, Turkish literature would have been lacking in faces [to put to the names]. In this way, I saved Turkish literature from remaining anonymous. [...] But I wanted the world to have a permanent record of these people, and it is a good thing I did what I did.”

Concealed within these portraits is evidence of the times he spent in his subjects’ company as he tracked down their faces and their lives; we can imagine the animated conversations, the excitement, the inhalations and exhalations of breath. He himself presented these photographs to the public as pieces of photo-journalism, and in his description of them we can see the arresting power of his pen:

“These people are my friends and companions. In most cases, the times we spent together were times when neither of us had a cent. So rather than stand around doing nothing, I recorded their faces.”

Just as much as they are literary history of a visual nature, these portrait photographs brought together under the title Bir Avuç Güzel İnsan constitute a visual chronology of the lives of the writers and poets on whom Ara Güler focused his attention. These unique portraits, quite a few of which (like the hitherto unseen photographs of Nâzım Hikmet displayed in this exhibition) are darkroom prints, demonstrate once again not just the importance of the Ara Güler photographic archive from the point of view of preserving our collective memory and keeping alive our recollection of cultural figures, but also the sheer vastness of its size and the breadth of its scope.

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.