Lupita Portraits: 💜 Museum of Anatolian Civilizations, Ankara, Turkiye

An art project of unique portraits 20 years in the making

Jan 28, 2025

Welcome

Hello! I’m Emily Lupita. I’m a Latina travel writer & artist from rural Iowa living in Ankara, the capital of Turkiye.

An ongoing art project now 20 years in the making, the Lupita Portraits series helps me explore my internal reality. Lupita is my avatar, a reflection, a friend.

This is a feature on - Emily Lupita Explores - a creativity journal where I share explorations from my writing desk & art projects, plus illustrated stories of travel adventures with my two Autistic sons.

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💜 Museum of Anatolian Civilizations, Ankara, Turkiye

A Museum For The Ages

The Museum of Anatolian Civilizations in Ankara, Turkiye, is an absolute treasure to behold. It is by far one of my favorite museums and just - overall - one of the best places to sit and think that I’ve ever been.

This painting is titled “Lupita Falls In Love At First Sight,” and you can see why. This magnificent statue greets visitors as they enter the main hall of the museum…and he just took my breath away. He has a guardian lion statue to his right and is housed in a room with sweeping angled ceilings.

Here’s more about the museum from the official Turkish government website:

It was the brainchild of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, who aimed to create a museum dedicated to the Hittite Civilization. To achieve this, Hittite artworks were collected from all over the country and brought to the capital city of Ankara.
The Anatolian Civilizations Museum is one of the top-rated museums in the world. With its unique collections, it was awarded the title of “Museum of the Year in Europe” in 1997.
The upper hall area contains exhibits from the Palaeolithic Age, Chalcolithic Age, Old Bronze Age, Assyrian Trade Colonies Age, the Old Hittite and Hittite Imperial Age, Phrygian Kingdom, Late Hittite Kingdom, and Urartian Kingdom.
The lower part contains exhibits from the Classical Periods and Ankara Through the Ages.

🛍️ New Lupita Portraits - Turkiye Series - Gifts

Check out my new Art Shop with Threadless for unique gifts made from my paintings & designs. With every purchase, a 10% donation from my earnings, plus an additional donation by Threadless, is automatically made to World Central Kitchen - doing good work worldwide.

Click here to shop for the “Lupita Falls In Love At First Sight” tote bag below.