The exhibition I, the Artist is retrospective in nature and chronologically recreates the creative path of Stefan Gatsev (1935–1986). A graduate of the first class of the High School of Fine Arts, followed by a degree in Painting from the National Academy of Art under Prof. Iliya Petrov and further studies in Decorative and Monumental Arts in the studio of Prof. Georgi Bogdanov, Stefan Gatsev was a painter with a categorical line and keen insight, which made him a master of composition. He possessed a pronounced sense of monumentality of form and an enviable perception of the tectonics of volumes, while at the same time managing to be laconic and impressive with the most economical of means.

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.