Emil Stoychev (b. 1935) is one of the most significant figures in Bulgarian fine arts from the second half of the 20^th century. His first appearance before the public took place in the current building of the Sofia City Art Gallery, when he exhibited his works at the emblematic First Youth Collective Art Exhibition in 1961. The exhibition had the glory of the first significant “thaw” in art after the death of Stalin and the April Plenum of the Bulgarian Communist Party (1956). This generation of artists would be called the April generation, and in the following years, it would give rise to the new look of Bulgarian fine arts. With his first solo exhibition (1965), Stoychev was recognized as a phenomenon such critics and observers of artistic life with a nose for the new like Kiril Krastev, Vladimir Svintila, and Dimitar Avramov.

The exhibition “Possible Connections: Images from the Studio of Nikolay Shmirgela” traces the known and unknown contacts over time between Shmirgela and the people who left their mark in his studio. The focus of the exhibition is on the works carefully kept for many years in his studio, which allow us to take a brief look into the intimate world of the artist.