Hasan Gürsoy opened the George Seferis Art Gallery in Urla, near Smyrna in Turkey, in honor of the Greek Nobel laureate. As a young boy, Seferis lived in the region until the age of 14 years, so when Gürsoy and his partners decided to open their gallery they decided to recognize the great Greek poet and thus pay tribute to the shared Greek-Turkish cultural past. The local community embraced this and the gallery has become a venue for artistic events and exhibits since it first opened in January 2014.

Gürsoy is often asked if he is Mr. Yiorgos, before he goes on to explain the gallery’s name in honor of the great 20th century Greek literary figure. Urla’s municipality in western Turkey named the street where the gallery is located after George Seferis in 1998. For this reason, the region attracts numerous visitors.

The Turkish owners of the gallery say that Seferis formative years in Urla influenced the rest of his life. They point to the numerous interviews where Seferis recounted happy childhood summers spent in Skala, the Iskele district of Urla, and they believe that the seaside locations with underwater caves, almond trees and coastal breezes are inspired by areas in Turkey.

Seferis went to Athens in 1914 at the start of World War I, but he headed to Paris to study Law at Sorbonne before returning to Athens in 1925. During World War II he went into self-imposed exile and this served to increase his longing for a homeland.

Turks also proudly point to the time he spent in Ankara from 1948 to 1950 on diplomatic assignments.

The George Seferis Art Gallery is located at Iskele Boulevard, 44 Yiorgos Seferis Street, Urla, Turkey