Today in History – 24 February

The First “Art Awards” are given

In order to encourage fine arts, the CHP administration initiated a systematic competition tradition named “Art Award” in 1942. Accordingly, selections were to be made from the areas of prose, music, theater, poetry, painting, sculpture, and architecture each year and the winners were to be given a prize. There were no criteria set for the selection of the winners. The works were to be selected based on the preferences of the jury.

The prose “(“novel”) committee of the Art Award met for the first time on February 20th. The jury was presided by Halit Ziya Uşaklıgil with Ahmet Muhip Diranas and Behçet Kemal Çağlar as co-secretaries. Jury members included Hakkı Tarık Us, Yahya Kemal Beyatlı, İbrahim Alaattin Gövsa, Nurettin Artam, Hüseyin Cahit Yalçın, Ferit C. Güven, M. ?ekip Tunç, Nasuhi Baydar, Vedat Nedim Tör, Nurullah Ataç, İsmail Hakkı Baltacıoğlu, Ahmet Kutsi Tecer, Kadri Yörükoğlu, Mustafa Nihat Özon, İsmail Habib Sevük, Sabahattin Eyüboğlu, Suut Kemal Yetkin, Behice Boran, Sabri Esat Siyavuşgil, and Fazil Ahmet Aykaç.

Following the elimination process, Yaban by Yakup Kadri Karaosmanoğlu received 30, Sinekli Bakkal by Halide Edip received 28, and Fahim Bey ve Biz by Abdülhak Şinasi Hisar received 19 votes from the jury as the top three works. The three finalists were voted on one last time and Halide Edip’s Sinekli Bakkal became the first recipient of the CHP Art Award of 2,500 Lira by nine votes.