GEORGI MASHEV 120th years since the birth of the artist

inauguration July 12, Thursday, 6 pm

12 July 2007 - 31 July 2007

The exhibition organized to mark the 120th anniversary since Georgi Mashev’s birth includes 49 works of art from different artistic periods. The main part of the collection belongs to Stanislav Dospevski City Art Gallery of Pazardjik and consists of 34 paintings and 11 drawings. Sofia City Art Gallery participates with four works from its fund.

A versatile personality and a learned artist, Georgi Mashev expresses his artistic activity into two basic but presumably opposing ways. On the one hand he is a master of portrait where his psychological insight combines with a subtle observation and a precise vivid drawing. On the other hand he’s got paintings on fantastic and fairy-tale subjects where his unleashed imagination leads him to symbolic generalizations and emotional revelations. Another part of Mashev’s works worth considering are his historic compositions which present realistic and vivid characters rich in dignity and grandeur. His keen social attitude becomes apparent in the artist’s satirical works. 

A contemporary of the symbolic influences in our art and the infatuation with secession and impressionism, Georgi Mashev doesn’t remain indifferent to the aesthetic quests of our artists in the first half of the 20th century. Yet his mature works find their plastic support mainly in the precise realistic drawing which allows for an earthly rendering even of his fantastic pieces. 

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Georgi Mashev was born on 1st January, 1887 in the town of Pazardjik. Until the eighth grade he studied in his home town and in 1906 he finished First Male Secondary School in Sofia. In the autumn of the same year he started attending the general Department of the School of Drawing (the present National Art Academy) under Prof. Petko Klisourov. For a short period of time he studied at the Petersburg Art Academy and then between 1909-1910 in the Special Department of Painting in Brussels under Prof. Edmond Richard. In 1912 he graduated from the Department of Painting of the School of Drawing under the professors Ivan Murkvichka, Stefan Ivanov and Ivan Angelov. He worked as a teacher in Second Male Secondary School in Sofia and then in Tsaribrod. In September 1915 Georgi Mashev organized his first solo exhibition in Sofia, which went off with great success. Right after Bulgaria got involved in WWI he was appointed military artist of the Cavalry division. In 1916-1917 he took part in the exhibition of Bulgarian artists in Berlin. After the end of WWI he worked as a teacher in Pazardjik where in 1920 he opened his second solo exhibition and took part in the exhibition of the Society of South-Bulgarian Artists. Between 1932-1945 Mashev organized solo exhibitions in Sofia, Plovdiv, Pazardjik and in 1945-1946 he took part in the general exhibitions of the Pazardjik artists. He died on 10th August, 1946.