Ankara Drawings of Eşref Üren and Andre Lhôte’s Influence

Eşref Üren (1897-1984) is an artist who lived in Ankara in the last 45 years of his life; acknowledged as an imperative personality in Ankara artistic circles. There are at least 100 Ankara landscapes in major art collections in Turkey that belong to him. This article discusses the Ankara drawings of Eşref Üren which are today in İmren Erşen collection, that were drawn after 1939. These drawings reveal fruitful results when analyzed with Turkish drawing history from the literature. Üren has been evaluated mainly as an impressionist painter. Therefore, the French painter André Lhôte’s (1885-1962) influence over Üren’s paintings and drawings, especially his works after 1950 has been undervalued. These drawings also signify some findings as to how Ankara’s urban texture influenced paintings. The first part of the article covers how Üren’s drawing views followed a pattern and matured. In the second part, we will explain the plastic relationship between his drawings and Ankara. The analysis of Eşref Üren’s Ankara drawings, in the light of new data from Eşref Üren’s unpublished drawing pads and diaries, offers a new point of view to André Lhôte’s strong influence over Eşref Üren. What is more, they will point to how Ankara’s urban texture influenced Üren between 1950 and 1980 while he drew these examples.