Balıkesir Metropolitan Municipality runs a contemporary art museum named after the painter Devrim Erbil, and the municipality's page for it is given over to a statement by Erbil himself rather than to a description of the collection.
His argument is worth reading before you go, because it explains what the museum was meant to be. Türkiye's contemporary art museum, he writes, is the one Atatürk gave the Turkish artist in the Crown Prince's Apartments of Dolmabahçe Palace, founded in 1937 and entrusted to Mimar Sinan University — he directed it himself between 1978 and 1983. Beyond that, he says, developed Turkish cities have no contemporary art museum; there are university ones at Trakya and Anadolu, and municipalities have art galleries, but no municipality had an art museum until this one.
The case he makes for Balıkesir in particular is that it is a city that produced artists. He names Fikret Mualla, who taught painting in Ayvalık; Edip Naci, who lived here for a time; Mustafa Aslier, Hüseyin Gezer and Adnan Turani, who were educated here; and Nushet Kutlu, Irfan Yılmaz and Sırrı Ozbay, whom he credits with giving the city its momentum in art. The museum shows the work of artists born and trained in Balıkesir.
When to go
- Climate
- Across Balıkesir as a whole, monthly mean temperatures run from 4.9 °C in January to 25.7 °C in July; the mean stays between 15 and 25 °C in May, June, September and October; rainfall is heaviest in January (87 mm) and lightest in August (5 mm). Long-term means for 1999-2025 from the Turkish State Meteorological Service (MGM).
