Dobri Dobrev’s exhibition at Sofia City Art Gallery is dedicated to the 110th anniversary since the birth of the artist. The exposition includes landscapes, portraits, subject and figural compositions as well as drawings from different periods of his work. The paintings belong to the collections of Sofia City Art Gallery, Sliven Art Gallery and the family of the artist.

Dobri Dobrev is one of those names in Bulgarian art that remained isolated from the tumultuous processes of the contradictory twentieth century. His artistic evolution took a steady and gradual course without any leaps of change and dramatic turns. Although he spent most of his artistic life in the cente of Europe among the dynamics of alterating trends and and tendencies, he remained indifferent to the modernistic plastic way of expression. The broad range of works show Dobri Dobrev’s endeavours to define colour, space and subject matter. What we see in them is the co-existence of colour splendour and light on the one hand with academic modelling of the form, immobility and subject and dimensioanl veracity on the other. The vivid line and expressive shades, the vigorous and expert rendering of the state prove Dobri Dobrev to be an excellent painter. Moreover, the accuracy in reflecting what he saw into his drawings and canvases can serve as a true socio historical document imparting the spirit of the period between the 30ies and the 40ies of the twentieth century.

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Dobri Dobrev was born on 21st December 1899 in the town of Sliven. In 1925 he graduated with honours and an honorary diploma in painting from the Prague Art Academy under the professors Max Svabinsky, Voitec Heneis, Max Pirner and Jacob Obrovski. Member of the “Rodmo Izkustvo” art society since 1928. Between 1929-1938 he lived and worked in Czechia. During that period he visited the European cities of Paris, Madrid, Barcelona, Rome, Florence, Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Hague, Brussels, London. In 1938 he returned to Bulgaria permanently. Till 1954 he worked in the town of Sliven and then moved to Sofia. From 1954 to 1965 he taught at the Secondary School of Arts in the capital. In 1942 he took part in the International biennale of painting in Venice. He was the author of a monograph about the artist Dimitur Dobrovich, 1957. In 1968 he was awarded the Order of Saint Cyril and Saint Methodius, First Class. Between 1923 and 1971 he set up 50 solo exhibitions in Bulgaria and Czechia. He worked in the field of painting and drawing. The genres he preferred were portrait, landscape, subject and figural compositions. Dobri Dobrev died on 1st March 1973 in Sofia. In 1974 he was posthumously honoured with the “Dobri Chintulov” Literature and Arts Award, Sliven.