Brushstrokes on Wheels: The Story of Horsecart Painter Numan Balıca

Murat Ertürk has spent the last seven years researching and documenting the sign painters and commercial artists from the Turkish city of Sakarya. Most of this has been focused in the period between the 1940s and 1990s and one of the sign painters, Enver Yücebalkan, was profiled in BLAG 03.Murat’s work has recently culminated in a new book, Sakarya’nın Harfleri (The Letters of Sakarya, reviewed in BLAG 09). The publication brings together over 650 photographs and archival documents, and includes detailed biographies of 48 artists whose stories have so far been largely overlooked. One of these is Numan Balıca, and here Murat helps to cement the legacy of this skilled and influential practitioner.Cover and spreads from Sakarya’nın Harfleri by Murat Ertürk.Brushstrokes on Wheels: The Story of Horsecart Painter Numan BalıcaBy Murat ErtürkIn the early twentieth century, Anatolia, Turkey, was a place where tradition and modernity intersected in various ways. As the Ottoman Empire collapsed…