Lütfiye Batukan Doll Art

faces like a sculptor, the artist sews, embroiders and dyes their clothes with the dexterity of a seamstress.

The fact that neither the characters she makes based on real people nor her fictional ones look alike is precisely what these dolls have in common. Symbolic characters of Turkish culture, folklore and history have been portrayed in their authentic clothes and environment.The artist even made sure that the embroidery on an Anatolian woman's three skirts be true to fact. She went to see the Mehter Troops at the Military Museum every week for two years the time she made the Mehter Troops, trying not to skip any details. From the dolls' clothes to their accessories, every element is important for Lütfiye Batukan... She has recreated the shepherd's sheep, the bard's lute, and the baby's crib when necessary. And while reality is an important feature in Batukan's work, its opposite, imagination and fiction have been equally important. In recent years especially, she has created more abstract characters and more eclectic figures. "Gratitude" dolls or works such as "The Tree of Life" are the latest examples of these types of works. Her"Ada Dolls", inspired by her granddaughter Ada, are also worthy of note among her recent works.

What brought Lütfiye Batukan, the creator of a giant little army of one thousand, to this day was her creativity, imagination and ambition. She too is a child of Anatolian soil, the cradle of innumerable traditions. Through an interesting coincidence, she was born in Kayseri, where they grow astragalus, the herb from which tragacanth, a principle material of doll making is made. A careful observer of nature and her surroundings since childhood, Lütfiye Batukan's interest in doll making begins at a very early age. In the beginning, she made dolls out of pieces she stole from the dough her grandmother rolled out while making dumplings, as well as from mud and clay. Afterwards she moved on to rag dolls. She put a coin at the end of a T shaped piece of wood, covered it with cloth and drew the facial features. She used to play for hours in the depot full of fabrics that her peddler father sold going around Anatolia, and combined these fabrics with her imagination. The turning point came when they moved to the capital city. She was fascinated by the sculptures in the Archaeology Museum in Kaleiçi and constantly played in the museum's garden. The dolls she saw on the vitrine of the Advanced Technical School for Girls one day marked the beginning of her career. She was surprised to realize that the dolls she'd made as a child shown some technique, and decided to take classes in the subject.

After learning the technique in Evening Art School for Girlsin 1960, her work with dolls started to get more serious. She applied her researchinto historical and traditional garments onto dolls and opened her first solo exhibition in 1977 in the French Cultural Center in Ankara. This wassucceeded by an exhibition in the Ottoman Bank's Ankara Art Gallery the same year.In 1978, she held exhibitions at the Hilton and Intercontinental Hotels in Istanbul and in the Yapı Kredi Kazım Taşkent Art Gallery.

These receive names such as Hemecik, Korçak, Çömçe, and Gelin Karaçör game or dance. Dolls are in fact known to be the world's oldest toys; it's been discovered that some of the statuettes found in Hittite, Phrygian, Bronze Age andNeolithic periodlayers and understood to have featured in religious ceremonies were used as toy dolls, and some had to do with the mother goddess cult. Clay figurines with painted faces and hair attached to their heads have been found in the Hacılar mound near Burdur province.

Wooden doll and god statuettes that the natives used to cast spells have been found in Ancient Egypt and among Native Americans. Dolls in Africa, on the other hand, recall engraved wooden fetishes. The Fingo people in Orange used to carry a doll with them as a lucky charm until their babies were born. In ancient Japan, dolls were regarded as living, and were clothed and fed. In India where people got married at a very young age, meticulously clothed dolls would be given as gifts among Muslims and Zoroastrians when a girl was getting married. And in some underdeveloped societies of the East, young girls were not given dolls because these were believed to harbor evil spirits (djinns). Folk healers or magicians all over the world have always practiced this common spell: After making dolls that roughly resemble an enemy, they have pierced the hearts of these dolls or burned them, in the hopes that the damage would befall the enemy in question. The puppet burned in England on Guy Fawkes' Day is a remnant of the same superstition.

Doll Art in Turkey

Although doll art, which dates as far back as the history of humankind, is all but disappearing in Turkey, the first doll exhibition was actually held in our country in 1936. European Red Crosses were among the attendees of the "International Doll Exhibition" that opened in Taksim Municipal Garden on August 8th, 1936. Twenty countries sent in dolls for the competition and exhibition. The Istanbul Consuls of these countries, parliamentary members, the press and the Red Crescent Foundation were present at the opening. The program prepared for the duration of the exhibition was really colorful as well, with parts from operettas and opera overtures presented in public concerts wherefamous artists of the time such as Bedia Muvahhit, Hazım Körmükçü, and Münir Nurettin performed.

Dolls from foreign Red Crescent and Red Crosses, as well as those made for exhibits and for sale were featured in the exhibition comprising 340 dolls in total. Ms. Zahide Müfide made the Bride and Groom doll from Ankara in exchange for 25 liras in the currency of the time. Some dolls were put up for sale at the end of the exhibition, and doll owners were paid, reserving a certain sum for the foundation. In addition, Evening Art School for Girls teacher Mr. Mazhar, Academyprofessor Mr. İsmail Hakkı, Mr. Edip Hakkı and Ms. Nanasofa participated with dolls they made specifically for the exhibition. The exhibition drew so much attention that even though it had been announced that it would stay up for fifteen days,it stayed open for a month and received 28 thousand visitors.

As for the jury in the competition, it was made up of Cemal Nadir Ramiz, Münif Fehim, Melek Hanım, Ayşe and Ertuğrul Muhsin. Zehra Müfit's three-part composition titled "Scrivener" was awarded first place.These dolls, along with seven others, were placed in the lottery that took place in public.

Doll exhibitions were held many times after this one, both in Turkey and in the world. The same year, doll making classes were opened at the Evening Art School for Girls and the Advanced Technical School for Girls. The Red Crescent Foundationalso opened doll making classes within its rehabilitation efforts program for people who worked with the infirm in their dwellings. They helped sell the dolls made by the students. The great interest in the first exhibition gave The Red Crescent the courage to hold exhibitions from time to time, and thus the Eminönü Branch of Turkey's Red Crescent Foundation had three other international exhibitions in the years 1950, 1954 and 1963. These exhibitions had a great role in the emergence of doll art in Turkey.

The first important doll artist of the country is Zehra Müfit Saner, who came first in the initial competition. Born in Ankara in 1880, Zehra Müfit was a pioneering and enterprising woman not only in doll making, but also in the newly established Republic of Turkey. Coming from the Hacı Bayram Veli family, Müfit was very interested in painting and handicrafts from a very early age. She hadn't left Ankara, then small as a village, until after she got married. But the paintings she made using her imagination looked so real that they displayed her talent. In the following years, she was able to combine this talent of hers with entrepreneurship. Hers was the first studio in Turkey to be opened by a Turkish woman. In her studio she accepted handicrafts, decoration and stitching orders from London and from the USA. When Ataturk first came to Istanbul, Zehra Müfit prepared all his belongings, furnished the Ertuğrul yacht, and even hand embroidered the flag of the automobile gifted to him by the nation. But the fact that she started working on dolls was by coincidence; she'd started working in this field after coming first in the doll exhibition and competition organized by the Red Crescent, and developed her craft over time. In her effort to pass this art form on to further generations, she started teaching."The aim in making these dolls and teaching the technique is to prevent their being forgotten or lost. Here are the mendicants, the Mawlawis, the Janissaries,all dressed according to their time. I do think that all these also constitute the first materials for a clothes museum. Another aim of mine is to energize children of the country and incite them to go into commerce. I think that a woman must help her husband out even if he doesn't need her to, and not be a burden. And for that, she should be able to make money. It mustn't be forgotten that something completely unexpected and original can be met with great interest."Having started doll making at a later age, she was perhaps unable to complete all the compositions she had in mind, but she hoped her students would finish what she hadn't had time to do.

If Zehra Müfit Saner is the first representative of doll art, we can assert that its most important representative in our day is Lütfiye Batukan. In the last 50 years, Lütfiye Batukan has raised dolls,previously considered knick-knacks, to the status of art. She is the most competent figure that comes up when we mention doll art in Turkey today. Working in this field non-stop for as long as half a century, shehas a collection of almost a thousand dolls in her possession. The artist, who uses tragacanth and cotton as her principal materials while making dolls, draws her subjects from Turkish folklore and great Ottoman history.

She took a break from her work with dolls in the beginning of the 80's due to health problems, and began to do ceramics.. Producing authentic works in this field as well, the artist still continues working with ceramics.

In 1986, Batukan had an exhibition in the Ataturk Library. She participated in the exhibition titled "A Glimpse of the Creative Turkish Woman"held in the Ataturk Culture Centerin 1987, as well as in the exhibition organized by the Foundation for the Preservation of Historical Houses in Turkey, and one held in Egypt by the Ministry ofCulture and Tourism as part of the Conference on Islam. She gained recognition in Turkey for the first time after receiving an achievement award at the"International Folklore Dolls Competition"in Polandin 1985. She then won first prize in the "National Folklore Doll Competition" held in Turkey for the first time in 1986. And again the same year, she started to work at the Turing Istanbul Handcrafts Center in Sultanahmet. The artist still continues her work there.

The current aim of the artist, who has directed her exhibitions abroad since 1990, is to promote Turkish culture abroad using dolls. Batukan, whose dolls have been exhibited in cities such as Marburg, Frankfurt, Basel and Vienna,attended the conference organized by NIADA, the National Institute of American Doll Artists in Chicago in the year 2000. Lastly, the exhibition she had at the Turkish House in New York, October of 2006 drew a lot of interest. One of the artist's dolls has also been featured in the catalog of the Textile Museum in the US. Another one of Batukan's dolls dressed in traditional Turkish clothing, which received media attention not only in Turkey but also abroad, is included in the Lousie Fecher's book, titled "Here Comes The Bride Dolls". The owner of a large collection of bride dolls, Fecher's book features traditionally clothed bride dolls from various countries all over the world. Lütfiye Batukan represents Turkey with a composition of an Anatolian bridal procession. An important reference material for experts and collectors ofdoll art, the book presents a small piece of our traditional culture and folklore to those interested.

Lütfiye Batukan continues her work today in the Istanbul Handcrafts Center brought to life by Çelik Gülersoy and located in Sultanahmet, one of Istanbul's most important historical districts. However, her biggest fear is that this art form will be lost after she is gone. Raising new artists is almost impossible, since patience, talent, creativity, curiosity for research, and respect for tradition all come together in few very people. Batukan's greatest aim and goal now is to set up a doll museum like those found elsewhere in the world. Turkey's first doll artist Zehra Müfit Saner wanted to set up a clothing museum. Even though she didn't live to see it, with the Sadberk Hanım Museumfounded by Sevgi Gönül of the Koç Family,her dream in a waycame true. However, Turkey still awaits a serious doll museum: one that will provide a window into the colors of the geography we inhabit, our millennia of history and our rich culture!

"A Cotton World- Lütfiye Batukan " will have a privileged place as the first book written on the subject in Turkey.