Dates:
Thu, Sep 24, 2026, 6:00 PM–10:00 PM
The Turkey of Jean Dieuzaide
A return to basics
The French Institute of Turkey hosts the exhibition La Turquie by Jean Dieuzaide, an exceptional set of photographs taken in 1955 by one of the great names of French humanist photography. Recently presented at the Abbaye de Flaran in Gers, this exhibition is now touring Turkey as a symbolic return to the lands that inspired it more than seventy years ago.
In 1955, at the request of Éditions Arthaud, Jean Dieuzaide undertook a long journey through Turkey to illustrate the book Trésor de la Turquie by Michel de Saint-Pierre. For nearly three months, accompanied by his wife Jacqueline, he crossed Istanbul, Ankara, Anatolia, Cappadocia, the shores of the Black Sea and the Aegean coast. From this journey is born a rare, powerful and deeply human photographic corpus.
These images reveal a still rural Turkey, crossed by traditions, ancestral gestures, markets, popular festivals, immense landscapes and scenes of daily life captured with a sensitive attention to beings and light. The gaze of Jean Dieuzaide never seeks exoticism: it meets faces, looks, presences. Through the fishermen of Istanbul, the caravaneers of Anatolia, the children of the villages of Cappadocia or the wrestlers of the popular festivals, he composes the living portrait of a country in full mutation.
Long remained invisible, these photographs had not been collected in an exhibition since 1957\. Their rediscovery is now a major event. They bear witness not only to the exceptional talent of Jean Dieuzaide—first winner of the Prix Niépce and founder of the Galerie du Château d'Eau in Toulouse—but also to a precious moment in the cultura...
Image credit: ©jean.dieuzaide
Source: Event information supplied by Bicentenaire de la Photographie - 2026-2027 (official OpenAgenda) — OpenAgenda open-licence event data.
