“Portrait” which derives from “Protraho” meaning “to copy” in Latin, is one of the most important and most productive fields used in history of painting. Portraiture was born from death cults and funeral rituals as a method to leave a mark of existence in the world, which in time became a testimony left from the past to the future, therefore increasing the number of portraits depicted and the development of portraiture painting.

Portraiture holds an important place in Turkish art by reflecting a reading into the history of the social and mental transformation of not just the artist and it’s model, but of the Turkish society as well.

The majority of the Ahmet Merey Art Collection is composed of 450 portraits. The collection includes art works from the earliest period of Turkish art up until the present by important artists and their most valuable work, making it the most important portrait collection in Turkish Art.

90 artworks brought together in “Silent Witnesses of Time – A Selection of Portraits and Self-Portraits in Turkish Art from the Merey Art Collection” exhibition that brings the most important artists of our country to the public from İbrahim Çallı up until today while observing the development of Turkish modernism with examples from almost all periods and schools of Turkish painting.

The exhibition, which will remain open between 6 October 2018 and 17 February 2019, can be visited every day except Monday from 11 AM to 7 PM and on Thursdays from 11 AM to 9 PM at Antalya Culture and Arts.