The jubilee exhibition organized in SCAG traces precisely the essential directions of exploration and evolution in the artistic trajectory of Petko Bonchev.

The exposition brings forth a rich and diverse creative heritage that seems engaged in equal measures in cinematographic stage design, in small sculpture and in painting.
Having initially chosen architecture in 1952 Petko Bonchev graduates from the State School of Polytechnics in Sofia to be able two years only later to find a home in the world of cinema. He gets employed in the Boyana Feature Films Studio and his allegiance to this institution will last a lifetime. There he will work as Production Designer on such films as The Inspector and the Night (1963), A Bit of Heaven for Three (1965), Karambol (1966), Taste of Almonds (1967), The Prosecutor (1968), The White Room (1968), At Each Kilometer (1969 – 1971), Typhoons with Gentle Names (1979), I Don’t Live One Life Only (Nikolai Ghiaurov 50) (1981), Salvation (1984) and others. And while designing this roll of battle epics for the silver screen, Petko Bonchev will be methodically creating an intimately personal poetic realm of images – paintings and small sculptures.
This exquisite heritage of the artist, which he himself revealed in a few solo exhibitions before his death remains insufficiently explored and unfamiliar to the public. The present exhibition in the SCAG offers the opportunity to perceive Petko Bonchev from a specific point of view that by all evidence makes it possible to recognize in the small sculptures the symbiosis between production design and painting and the seamless fusion of expressive means that transform the movie frame into a painting and infuse the painting with the vitality of a cinema scene.

The exhibition includes works from the fund of the SCAG and private collections, as well as photographic testimonials from the Photographic Archive of the Bulgarian National Cinematheque.

The exposed photos are the work of: Irina Peeva, Donka Jolova, Lothe Mihailova, Krum Kostov, Jeni Vulova, Georgi Rusinov, Elena Dimitrova, Mladen Chavdarov, Krassimir Arabadjiev, Lena Hurtarska, Todor Kostov, Kornelia Antonova, Nikolai Gospodinov.

The Exhibition is created in partnership with the Bulgarian National Cinematheque, the National Film Center Executive Agency, the Artist Author Association, the Music Author Association.