Bedri Rahmi Eyüboğlu Culture and Art Museum
Painter and poet Bedri Rahmi Eyüboğlu (1911-1975) is one of the best-known names in twentieth-century Turkish painting and poetry. His connection to İskilip goes back to a short but formative visit in 1942; in its memory, a museum opened in his name in İskilip in 2009 — according to Turkish Wikipedia, Turkey’s first Bedri Rahmi Eyüboğlu museum.
The 1942 Visit to İskilip
Eyüboğlu came to İskilip in 1942 and stayed for two weeks. According to Türkiye Yazarlar Birliği (the Turkish Writers’ Union), the visit produced a marked shift in his approach to painting. In a letter to his brother Sabahattin Eyüboğlu, he described the town:
“Brother, I could not have imagined a more extraordinary place for painting. Mountains I had long searched for and never found. Mountains inside the city, at its very center — running, so to speak, straight through the tram street. Medieval houses strung like clusters of grapes along the streambanks. There is no way not to fall for İskilip at once.”
During his stay he filled his paintings with the town’s halay dancers, caravanserai courtyards and saz-playing minstrels, and described his departure with the same intensity: “Yesterday I fled İskilip, but how — like fleeing a woman I loved dearly…”
A Poem, and Some Uncertainty
According to the İskilip Municipality, Eyüboğlu, inspired by the Çatalkara grapes he tasted in İskilip, wrote a poem there that later became famous. Sources disagree on the poem’s title, however: the municipality’s account links this to his celebrated poem “Karadut” (“Black Mulberry”), while a 2011 news report (Milli Gazete / TYB) gives the name of the poem written in İskilip as “Çatalkaram” — a title that matches the grape variety itself. The poem’s exact identity is therefore presented here with caution.
The Museum and Çatalkara Sanatevi
The museum, opened in 2009, displays 41 digitally printed pieces from Eyüboğlu’s “Çorum Defteri” (Çorum Notebook), kept during his time in İskilip, alongside 25 works he continued to develop until his death. On the centenary of his birth (2011), the district held commemorative events under the name “İskilip Kültür Sanat Günleri” (İskilip Culture and Art Days); as part of these, a 150-year-old historic mansion was restored into the Çatalkara Sanatevi (Çatalkara Art House), now housing painting and sculpture workshops, a children’s theatre and guest rooms.
Why It Matters
Bedri Rahmi Eyüboğlu’s letters and paintings about İskilip are a vivid record of twentieth-century Turkish painting’s engagement with Anatolia. The museum and art house let visitors rediscover the district’s historic fabric — mountains running through the town, medieval houses strung along the streambanks — through a painter’s eyes. For the district’s broader history, see İskilip History; for other cultural traces of the era, see the Museum of İskilip Scholars.