Teaching as a moral responsibility
Born in Sivas in 1923, Vehbi Yazgan passed away in Istanbul, Turkey in 2000. Yazgan completed his primary education in Sivas, Central Anatolia, Turkey, and graduated from the Sivas Muallim Mektebi (Sivas Teachers’ School) in 1943, an institution whose roots trace back to 1882. Originally founded as “Darulmuallimîn-i İbtidâi” to train primary school teachers, the school began its operations with a four-year curriculum. The establishment of the school was a result of the local community’s strong demand for modern education, making it one of the most established educational centers in the region long before the Republic of Turkey.1
Around 1946, the shop of Süleyman Yazgan, a dealer of photographic materials in Sirkeci-İstanbul, had become a gathering place for Istanbul’s amateur photographers. Vehbi Yazgan, then a young educator, was among this core group. These informal meetings frequently developed into photographic excursions accompanied by long discussions on photography as both a trade and a medium. By the 1950s, photography in Turkey remained largely excluded from local exhibition institutions and was still debated as “not art” and was largely associated with studio portraiture and commemorative photography. While access to municipal galleries was often denied, alternative venues such as the French Cultural Center and the American Cultural Center provided spaces for group exhibitions, allowing photographic practices to circulate despite limited institutional recognition. Within this context, the enthusiasm of participants coming from diverse backgrounds helped lay the groundwork for what would become the early history of photography in Turkey.2
Yazgan continued his higher education at the Department of Art–Craft (Resim-İş) of Ankara Gazi Education Institute. Established in 1926 after the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire, the Republic of Turkey initiated wide-ranging educational reforms to cultivate a new generation aligned with republican and secular values. From the 1930s onward, this school became one of the key institutions training the idealistic young teachers the Republic of Turkey referred to as its “spark”. Here, in line with the modern Republic’s understanding of art education, he went through a multi-disciplinary studio training: he received production and technical education in many fields such as painting, modeling, metal, and woodworking. He graduated in 1950.3
Between 1950 and 1951, Yazgan took on the founding and workshop-chief duties of the microfilm and photography workshop at Istanbul Süleymaniye Library. During this period, he contributed to transferring 5,000 works belonging to the library into the microfilm archive. The students he trained in the workshop were among the specialists who formed the foundations of modern librarianship and photographic art in Turkey.4
In 1951, as one of the young teachers selected by the Ministry of National Education, Yazgan was sent to HFBK (Hochschule für bildende Künste Hamburg).5 This period was one of the last student generations through which Turkey established connections with European art and education institutions. In Hamburg, working with Prof. Hans Grubenbecher and Prof. Gustav Hassenpflug, he took courses in photography, machine technology, micro photography, color photography, and retouching; he also received German language education.6
When he returned to Istanbul in 1952, he continued his microphotography work. Until 1959, he taught photography at the Printing School (Matbaacılık Okulu) and art-craft (resim-iş) at Beşiktaş High School. In the lessons he gave at the Printing School, he explained subjects such as lens, bellows distance, light–shadow; and in applied photography classes, the development and critique of the photographs taken were carried out.7 In the 1957–1958 academic year, Yazgan was assigned as the founder and instructor of the Photography Workshop within the Graphic Department of the Istanbul Applied Fine Arts School (Tatbiki Güzel Sanatlar Yüksek Okulu, today Marmara University Faculty of Fine Arts), which had been newly established.8 Later, when new workshops were being formed in the third year of the Art–Craft Education Department opened in the Atatürk Education Faculty, Yazgan founded the Woodworking Workshop.
In a student exhibition held at the school building in Beşiktaş, Istanbul during the seventh year of Tatbiki’s foundation, newspapers reported that the photographs taken by his students with simple cameras astonished the art lovers.9 With the discipline and productivity associated with the Bauhaus approach, Yazgan became a formative figure in the education of many artists. A shared sentence among his students was: “He proved to us in the strongest way how important the teaching profession is.”
Tatbiki Applied Fine Arts School was attached to Marmara University in 1982 through the Higher Education Council (YÖK) regulation. Within the academic staff that included departments such as industrial design, photography, graphic design, and advertising, Vehbi Yazgan also continued to work as an instructor. He retired upon his own request in 1982. In the following years, he continued his painting and photography work and participated in group exhibitions. Throughout his life, Yazgan considered teaching a moral responsibility.10
Cafer Türkmen (1920–2007) – Photographer
He describes the photography scene in Istanbul in the 1946s, the group of amateur photographers who gathered in Süleyman Yazgan’s shop, and the fact that Vehbi Yazgan was part of this core community. These meetings formed the foundations of IFSAK (Istanbul Photography and Cinema Amateurs Club). At a time when photography was not considered an “art,” the exhibitions they opened at the French Cultural Center paved the way for the establishment of photographic communities in Turkey.11
Güler Ertan (1940) – Photographer
In her first photography class at Tatbiki, her teacher Yazgan showed all 36 frames she had shot to the class as an example, due to correct exposure and light use. This was decisive in Ertan’s choosing a career in photography.12
Sema Ilgaz Temel (1957) – Photographer
She recounts that Yazgan always began lessons with the question “Why is the wolf’s neck thick?” The answer: “Because it does its own work itself.” This motto instilled work discipline, independence, and a sense of responsibility in his students. She says that in the intensive photography lessons, they learned photography and printing, took many photographs, and prepared photographic chemicals.13
İbrahim Demirel (1941) – Photographer
He says that during the photography lessons he took from Yazgan in the Graphic Department of the Applied Fine Arts School, he learned with great pleasure how to take photographs and how to develop film, even though he did not have a camera. He recounts that the photographs he took in his village were highly appreciated by Vehbi Yazgan and Güler Ertan, and that they directed him to participate in the photography competition of Hayat Magazine. Winning the competition opened the doors to his photography career, and with the prize money he was able to buy his first camera.14
Hasan Saltık (1942) – Photographer
He states that during his education at Tatbiki, Yazgan and his assistants played a major role in shaping his understanding of photography. Although he had a basic knowledge of photography, he says that he developed the real technique of photography in Yazgan’s workshop.15