Rafet Başokçu (1885 - 1950) Click for Artist Information

Rafet Basokçu

Rafet Basokçu (1885 - 1950)

Rafet Başokçu was born in 1885. He took his first painting lessons from Hodja Ali Rıza at the "Numune-i Terakki School" in Şehzadebaşı. Later, he studied oil painting with Osman Asaf (Bora), who was the assistant of Hodja Ali Rıza. In addition to his painting studies, he studied law for four years upon his father's request. She first became known for her watercolor paintings of women. During this period, when Turkish women were forbidden to paint in photography studios, her paintings of women were raided by the police. Although not included in the exhibition catalogs, various publications state that the artist participated in the Galatasaray Exhibitions several times. 

It is also known that the self-portrait he exhibited at one of the Ankara Exhibitions of the Fine Arts Union was admired by government representatives and was included as one of the examples of Turkish painting in the section devoted to fine arts in the book "La Turquie Contemporaine" published in French. It is known that he worked as a painter for the Ministry of Health for a while and worked on poster art during this period. We can also say that the artist's works are an investigation on how the modern female identity was created through the representation of the female body by focusing on the first periods when Western influence began to gain dominance in our culture. She died in 1950 in Istanbul.