This year marks the 130th anniversary of the birth of Nikola Petrov - one of most remarkable and valuable talents, having contributed to the history of Bulgarian art with his innovative approach. Nikola Petrov’s paintings belong to the category of artworks that are still relevant in the present day, also looking ahead into the future. His extraordinary gift and skill, his short life and untimely death – he died when he was only 35 – turned him into a legend enveloped in mysticism. This mysticism stems from his remarkable life story. It is an intense, over-eventful story. Qualitative changes, having occurred within short time periods, are easy to spot in various artworks of his.

This artistic dynamics started very early, namely in his student years. He was only 22, when became a founding member of the “Modern Art” Association in 1903. In the same year he received a state grant and visited Rome. From this point on, he would participate every year in various events held in Sofia, Belgrade, Liège, London, Zagreb, Munich, Venice, Rome, Berlin. In addition to the multitude of drawings, watercolor and oil paintings, Nikola Petrov also illustrated works by Pencho Slaveykov and Todor Vlaykov, and created the mural composition “Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary” in the northern altar of the “Alexander Nevski” Cathedral. His painting “Lions’ Bridge in the City of Sofia”, featured at an international exhibition in Rome in 1911, was bought by the Museum of Contemporary Art of Rome. In the same year his painting “St. Sofia Church” was the first one of his paintings to be bought by the Bulgarian state.

His life story and artistic career will always feel incomplete because of what failed to be created by a remarkable talent within a life cut short. A talent and a life that could have given many a new direction in Bulgarian art, had they had more time on this earth.

The exhibition features works belonging to the Sofia City Art Gallery, the National Art Gallery, the National Academy of Arts, the Sofia History Museum, the “Nikola Petrov” Vidin City Art Gallery, the Plovdiv City Art Gallery, the “Ivan Funev” Vratsa City Art Gallery, the Stara Zagora City Art Gallery, the National Museum of Military History, the National Museum of Literature, the “Svetlin Rousev” Studio-Collection, Sofia, the “Svetlin Rousev” Art Gallery-Donation, City of Pleven, the “Indzhov” Collection, the “Zhivko Chubriev” Collection and other private collections.

An exhibition catalogue is available, published with the support of the Ministry of Culture and the “Culture” Directorate of the Sofia City Municipal Council.

TOUCHING THE SHADOW CuratorKrasimir Iliev

15 September 2011 - 09 October 2011

The exhibition is an attempt to touch upon the issue of darkness and shadow, as seen in works, created within a nearly hundred-year period, by thirty Bulgarian artists belonging to various generations, namely Ivan Murkvichka, Nikola Petrov, Vladimir Dimitrov – the Master, Ivan Milev, Zhorzh Papazov, Nikola Tanev, Bencho Obreshkov, Iliya Beshkov, Vasil Ivanov, Genko Genkov, Nikola Daskalov, Georgi Baev, Atanas Patsev, Nikola Terziev, Peter Dochev, Ivan Georgiev – the Rembrandt, Tomas Kochev, Stoyan Tsanev, Angel Stanev, Dimitur Lalev, Dimitur Koulev, Milko Bozhkov, Stanislav Pamoukchiev, Yulia Stankova, Krasimir Iliev, Ziyatin Nouriev, Dimitur Iliev, Nadezhda Karapencheva, Antonia Angelova and Mina Angelova.

For them darkness and shadow have various meanings: the are masters of passions; a nurturing environment that engenders form; ghosts, prophesying doom, yet also the enchanting poetry of darkness, its designated time for ecstatic prayer, opening ajar the gate between life and death. The shadow may be a delicate weapon of female coquettishness. It may dance together with the light and be its counterpoint. The shadow is concentrated spirituality, and in order for form to be eternal, it has to contain a shadow. The shadow of a human is not only his/her essence, but also his/her entirety. Darkness is the fabric of the devil, yet also the haven of beauty. Darkness is the sadness of being aware of human imperfection. Darkness is a womb, yet also a snare for humans. It weaves its thread, entangling light in its attempt to devour it, but not its creator.

Works selected for the exhibition also present light and darkness in a continuum whose extremities are the Christian view of the fight between the two and the Chinese idea of their indivisibility and mutual complementation. It is obvious that in the course of time, especially after the 1970’s, black does not simply take over larger and larger territories in Bulgarian art, but frequently loses its negative meaning, even turning into the essential image-representing device. Consciously or not, this process draws it closer to this part of Far Eastern art, which is rooted in the Zen view of representation, namely the sudden reaching of this darkness-extracted shattering moment, that was prompted by enlightenment.

ROUMEN SCORCHEV VARIATIONS ON A THEME THE LUNCHEON ON THE GRASS

08 September 2011 - 09 October 2011

The exhibition seeks to reconsider Édouard Manet’s famous painting “The Luncheon on the Grass” – a theme that was subject to various interpretations long before Manet approached it, while his own painting inspired the creation of numerous replicas in the decades to follow.

“The Luncheon on the Grass” prompted Roumen Skorchev to recapitulate his years-long life and artistic experience, to reconstruct well-established notions, to provide his own interpretation of aesthetical and moral values. In his variations on the theme, complete with his signature dynamic stroke of the brush and intense colors, he creates an intense sensation of the anxiety of the modern day and age, while searching for various perspectives on timeless questions and unresolved conflicts of human life. Going beyond the subject of Manet’s painting, the artist turns the theme into a field of his visual revelations, as well as into an intimate spiritual space of his own.
The Sofia City Art Gallery-hosted exhibition features exclusively new, previously un-exhibited works, created over the last few years. Roumen Scorchev presents his interpretations of the theme in 20 paintings and a selection of the numerous sketches and studies preceding them.

A richly illustrated exhibition catalogue is available*.

Academician Roumen Skorchev was born in 1932 in the town of Turgoviste. He earned a major in park construction and engineering in 1957, and in 1964 he graduated from the Academy Arts, where he has been holding a professorship ever since 1984. He has won more than 40 awards home and abroad. He has illustrated a large number of books for both children and adults. He was awarded a fellowship by the Japanese Kokucai Koryu Kikin Foundation. Works of his are featured in the Japanese two-volume edition presenting 300 leading graphic artists of the 20th century. In 1970 he was awarded a gold medal at the International Florence Biennial, the awarded work having been added to the Uffizi Gallery collection. Paintings of his present Bulgaria at the Albertina Museum, Vienna, the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D. C., Dordrechts Museum, Dordrecht, the Netherlands, and many other museums and private collections around the world.