Maryam Şahinyan

Maryam Şahinyan (* 1911 in Sivas , Ottoman Empire , † 1996 in Istanbul , Turkey ) was a well-known photographer in Turkey. She is considered one of the first professional photographers in Turkey. She was of Armenian descent.

Life

Maryam Şahinyan was born in the Şahinyan mansion now known as Camlı Köşk in Sivas City. Her grandfather Agop Şahinyan Pascha was a member of Sivas' first Ottoman parliament from 1877. She had six siblings, three brothers and three sisters.

In the course of the Armenian genocide from 1915 onwards, the Şahinyan family had to flee to Istanbul via Samsun , leaving behind large estates, including the Şahinyan Konağı, 5 flour mills, 30 villages and numerous properties. The family settled in the Harbiye district of Istanbul . Maryam attended the Armenian Esayan School.

Maryam Şahinyan's father Mihran became a partner in the photo studio "Foto Galatasaray" in Beyoğlu in 1933 . In 1936, Maryam's mother Dikranuhi died. Maryam dropped out of the Lycée Français Sainte-Pulchérie private high school to help out her father in the Galatasaray studio. From 1937 she ran the studio independently until 1985.

Maryam Şahinyan's shop was particularly frequented by middle-class women. She left a photographic archive that consists of over 200,000 black and white negatives and has been digitized. The archive is open to the public and has been shown at several exhibitions. It offers an insight into the change in Istanbul. Şahinyan remained single and had no children.

She died in 1996 in her house on Hanımefendi Street in Şişli and is buried in the Şişli Armenian Cemetery.

Web links

• portrait

Individual evidence

1. ↑ gazetevatan.com
2. ↑ ^{a b c d} Tayfun Serttas: Who was Maryam Sahinyan? . SALT. Retrieved November 26, 2012.