Works by the Dutch painter Marius Bauer from the collections of important museums in America and Europe, especially of the Rijkmuseum in Amsterdam, will be presented to art lovers during the four-month exhibition. Exhibiting more than 100 oil paintings, etchings and sketches by Bauer, one of the most important representatives of orientalism in the Netherlands, the Dilek Sabancı Art Gallery is hosting an international exhibition for the first time since its inauguration in 2009. The exhibition also features educational programmes for the children and youth of Mardin.

In her opening speech Sabancı University Head of the Board of Trustees Güler Sabancı said: “We are proud to host an international exhibition as we celebrate our 4th year as the Sakıp Sabancı Mardin City Museum and Dilek Sabancı Art Gallery. We are hosting the Dutch painter Marius Bauer, one of the greatest European artists, for the first time with our new exhibition titled “An Orientalist in Mardin: Marius Bauer”. Like all artists enchanted by the east, Marius Bauer was a traveller. He undertook his first voyage, during which he would fall under the spell of the east, in 1888 when he was 21. He sailed to Ottoman Turkey, stopped at Izmir and then made his way to Istanbul. We are overjoyed to have opportunity to bring Bauer’s works back to the country he could never forget. This is an exhibition to the highest western standard in the easternmost part of the east. I am grateful to all those who have made a contribution to the exhibition, starting with the Province of Mardin.”

Sabancı Foundation Head of the Board of Trustees, Dilek Sabancı commented on the exhibition saying: “We opened the Sakıp Sabancı Mardin City Museum and Dilek Sabancı Art Gallery in 2009 with the exhibition titled “Selections from the Sabancı University Sakıp Sabancı Museum Collection – Nature, Man and the Sea”, which brought together works by many great Turkish artists from Hikmet Onat, İbrahim Safi and Şeref Akdik to Abidin Dino, Adnan Çoker and Selma Gürbüz. In 2010 the exhibition “Abidin Dino in Mardin – Selected Works 1930 – 1990” attracted many visitors, and in 2011 with the exhibition "Lo and Behold... Ara Güler in Mardin” we shared the works of Ara Güler, the photography artist of international renown, with our visitors. And now, with our new exhibition “An Orientalist in Mardin: Marius Bauer”, we are happy to present a selection of paintings by Marius Bauer, one of the most important Orientalist painters of the Netherlands. With this exhibition we have advanced the Sakıp Sabancı Mardin City Museum and Dilek Sabancı Art Gallery to an international level. I sincerely believe that together we will raise artistic and cultural awareness even further through our future exhibitions and educational programmes.”