The Suna and İnan Kıraç Foundation Pera Museum is presenting the work of Frank Bowling, regarded as one of the most important living abstract painters, in Türkiye for the first time. Curated by Alistair Hicks, the exhibition (Turkish title “Frank Bowling: Yaratım ve Yıkım, Francis Bacon ve Victor Willing Müdahalesiyle”) explores more than sixty years of the artist’s output together with works by Francis Bacon and Victor Willing.
Born in British Guiana in 1934, Bowling settled in London in 1953, graduated from the Royal College of Art with a silver medal in 1962 and moved to New York in 1966. The first Black artist elected a Royal Academician in 2005, he was knighted in 2020, and Tate Britain held a major retrospective of his work in 2019. At 92, he is still actively painting.
The exhibition brings together work from the 1960s to the present, including pieces shown for the first time. Highlights include “My Guyana” (1966–1967), the “Map Paintings” series (1967–1971), “Cathedral Window” (1986), and the recent “Map” (2025), “Exile” (2025) and “Revisiting Mother’s House” (2026).
Works by Bacon and Willing appear as “interventions”, among them Bacon’s “Study for Nude” (1952–1953) and “Portrait of Lisa” (1956) and Willing’s “Head VI (or Yellow Hair)” (1985). Curator Hicks says the three artists “make us more aware of the fine line between order and chaos.” A Turkish-English catalogue accompanies the exhibition.
Dates and venue
- 29 September 2026 – 31 January 2027, Pera Museum
- In collaboration with the British Consulate General Istanbul
Pera Museum is open Tuesday to Saturday 10:00–19:00 and Sundays 12:00–18:00. Admission is free for all visitors on Fridays 18:00–22:00 (“Long Friday”) and for all students on Wednesdays (“Young Wednesday”).
