Çallı’s lost portrait in CHP building

ISTANBUL / Radikal

İbrahim Çallı’s lost ‘İnönü Portrait’ is on the wall of the CHP’s Levent Karakoç’s room. RADİKAL photo, Fatih Yağmur

Famous Turkish painter İbrahim Çallı’s “İnönü Portrait,” which was taken from an Istanbul Painting and Sculpture Museum exhibition 70 years ago and was not returned, is on the office wall of Istanbul’s Eyüp’s Republican People’s Party (CHP) Provincial Chairman Levent Karakoç.

The good news has come to the Istanbul Painting and Sculpture Museum, which is preparing to move to its new place. Çallı’s painting, which has been searched for 70 years, is estimated to be worth $6 million. CHP members claimed they did not know the painting was missing and being searched for or how the painting came to the building.

Karakoç, who learned from daily Radikal that the painting had been registered in the inventory of the museum, said: “I am 45 years old and a CHP member for as long as I have known myself. This painting has been on the wall here for many years. I have no idea where it came from.” Karakoç said the CHP had not received a demand for the painting.

No safety measure has been taken for the painting, the value of which is estimated to be worth $5 to 6 million by Mimar Sinan University Fine Arts Faculty Rector Yalçın Karayağız. “Our gates are pretty strong, our security cameras are working. But we have no special measure for the painting,” Karakoç said.

Rector Karayağız is pleased about this development. He said they had not heard about the painting after it was taken from a museum exhibition in the 1940s. “We have heard that the painting was there, but I did not have a chance to go there and see it. Now we certainly know its place. I will get in touch with the CHP leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu after the Bayram holiday and ask for its return. I know his sensitivity about such issues. I believe that he will not create difficulty for us,” he said