02 October 2003 - 21 October 2003

For the 100th jubilee dedicated to the birth of the artist Zlatyo Boyadjiev, the SAG presents an exhibition with 35 works from the 40s, 60s, and 70s of the 20th century. 

14 June 2003 - 30 July 2003

The exhibition at the SAG has a retrospective nature and includes the period 1949 - 2003. The paintings presented show characteristic and important stages in the development of Svetlin Roussev as an artist for more than half century. 

08 May 2003 - 05 June 2003

Vassil Simitchiev was born on 25 June 1938 in Sofia. In 1962, he graduated sculpture from the Academy of Arts in Sofia at the studio of Professor Lubomir Dalchev. In Bulgaria, he worked in the area of the decorative -monumental. 

He has been working and living in Sweden since 1975. He became popular with his conceptual projects, part of which found their implementation into monumental scale. The Glass Pier (1985) and the Bridge (1996) have categorically established him as a strong creative individuality not only in Sweden. Critique qualifies him as the most distinctive and interesting artist not only in Sweden. He is impervious to –isms and commercial modernism. The artist was awarded with the Culture prize of Malmö in 1982. 

He has worked in the area of performance and video. 

The exhibition of Vassil Simitchiev at the Sofia Art Gallery is his first one-man exhibition in his hometown. The works shown by the artist have been especially meant for the gallery’s space. 

11 April 2003 - 20 April 2003

William Watson was born on 17.04.1894 in the town of Pelsley, England. During World War I he was an officer. He remained in the Allied mission in Bulgaria and then he settled in Bulgaria. William Watson had higher education of a textile engineer. In 1931, he became stockowner and a representative of Bulgaria OOD, Kazanluk for production and trade with threads and textiles. 

In 1924, he married Theodora Popova – daughter of the regional governor of Varna Vassil Popov. After1930 the Watson family settled in Sofia in the house of Professor Al. Balan, N 4 Kliment Ohridski Street. In that period until 1939 William Watson created numerous paintings-portraits, landscapes form Sofia, Bansko, the Byala river, the region of Rousse, the Vit river, Ribaritza, Rilski Monastery, Preobrajenski Monastery, Samokov, Haskovo, Varna, the Danube river, the Lake of Devnya, Aladja Monstery and others.He created series of compositions from the urban and rural lifestyle, thematic still-life and painting canvasses depicting circus scenes, dressmaking shops, urban markets, streets and others. The art of eng. William Watson is remarkable with its diversity in genres. He created paintings in the classic technique of oil painting and pertinence to the realistic reflection of nature. 

Plamena Dimitrova-Racheva

09 April 2003 - 20 April 2003

The paintings of Emiliya Panayotova can be defined as both as landscapes and abstract works. The viewer can discover hints for nature but also worlds different than the real one. According to the painter, ‘landscape in painting is probably the most attractive expressive means’. The basic origins such as air and water can be traced in each canvass. The feeling of vastness or restlessness implies the different conditions of the spirit and provocations of the mental. In these pieces of nature could be found feelings, moods, existential dilemmas that can hardly found an answer or do not find such at all. The common linking point is found in the idea of endlessness, despite the reoccurrence of the separate happening in nature and its projection in the infinity of the universe.

25 February 2003 - 30 March 2003

The exhibition of engravings created by Hristophor Gepharovich, Zahraii Orphelin and Velko Mihaylovich was shown in the fall of 2002 in Samokov within the program of the international scientific conference Monastery Culture on the Balkans. Due to the great interest towards the works, it was agreed during the inauguration in the town of Samokov for the exhibition to be shown to viewers in Sofia. Thus, the only collection of Hristophor Gepharovich and Zahraii Orphelin known in Bulgaria, owned by Elena and Ivan Duichevi became accessible to a larger audience. 

25 February 2003 - 30 March 2003

According to the commercial terminology, Export-Import means the export of one commodity and the import of another. In the context of the present edition this term changes its meaning and denotes our desire to “bring”, virtually and actually, the exported contemporary Bulgarian art back to its native country. Virtually – through the catalogue that preserves the works that have left the borders of the country. Actually – through the exhibition that tries to restore the map of Bulgarian presence abroad.

The Export-Import project is an attempt at filling a “blank” spot in our knowledge about the things happening outside Bulgaria (and inside it also). And at provoking the public opinion towards reconsidering its position about these artists who for more than 10 years have been Bulgaria’s invariable face before the world. All presented authors are alive and in sound health. And they have not yet given up their desire to create art. Isn’t it better to leave behind the “myth of the return” instead of participating in its formation? And to give these artists what they deserve here and now. So that they would not feel as hotel guests in their own country.

05 February 2003 - 28 February 2003

Kiro Mavrov is familiar to Bulgarian viewers as an illustrator, book designer and author of satiric drawings. His last one-man exhibition was in 1983. 

Twenty years later, he presents 10 drawings, 10 paintings on canvass, 10 watercolors, and 5 mechanisms.

The author’s idea appeared years ago. After numerous drawings, sketches and experiments Kiro Mavrov has reached the implementation of the project. His aim is to create one common space, in which separate works complement and influence each other. Active role in it play the mechanisms – kinetic objects representing the actual movement as an echo of painting and drawings. 

09 January 2003 - 09 February 2003

In 1975, the painter Stoyan Illiev gave Boyan Radev the painting Girl with a Bird painted in 1967. Thus started the story of a remarkable collection ranging from works of contemporary artists combined with painting and sculpture from the whole XX century, icons and church plate from the and the Revival perod, to Antiquity works. Almost for 28 years, Boayn Radev has been collecting creations of Bulgarian artists and monuments found in Bulgarian lands. 

This is the first time when art connoseurs will have the chance to see contemporary art of this collection. In two of the halls of the Sofia City Art Gallery 190 paintings and 60 sculptures are exhibited created at the end of the 60s of the last century until present.

11 November 2002 - 04 December 2002

The 140 buildings were designed by more than 140 architects and creators 7presented in the exhibition. The buildings that were completed (or started) during the last four years reflect the most important tendencies in contemporary Viennese architecture and also a way of preservation and restoration of the precious city’s building heritage.