Georg Kolbe in Istanbul 1917/18

Georg Kolbe lived and worked in Turkey for almost two years during the First World War. As a soldier, he was transferred to Istanbul to work as an artist. His main task was to design a cemetery with a memorial to the fallen in the embassy park in Tarabya. The German ambassador Richard von Kühlmann had summoned the sculptor to Istanbul because he wanted to gather a ‘court of muses’ around him. At least Georg Kolbe was active as a ‘court sculptor’. He was active in several areas: He portrayed members of the embassy and the military, but also the leading young Turkish politicians. He designed fountain figures for the embassy park and decorated the embassy’s ballroom (now the Consulate General) with a cycle of reliefs.

Despite the war, Kolbe’s stay was at times paradisiacal, as the artist later recalled. His work was overshadowed by the fact that Kaiser Wilhelm II and the Prussian Minister of War rejected his monument in Tarabya. Thanks to broad support from Istanbul and the Foreign Office as well as the Ministry of Culture in Berlin, it was nevertheless completed.

The small documentary exhibition shows sculptures, drawings and photographs of lost works of art from Kolbe’s Turkish period. Letters, notes, copies of archival documents from the Political Archive and private photographs shed light on the historical background.
An information brochure will be published to accompany the exhibition.