The present exhibition traces the reflections of European artistic trends on Bulgarian post-liberation art. The dialogue between Bulgaria and Europe in the specified period was extremely dynamic, multilateral and continuous. It reveals a complex and highly intricate network of connections between personalities, events, art centers, trends, works, cultural phenomena. An indisputable fact was the desire to include Bulgarian artists in European art with the clear awareness and self-confidence that Bulgaria was part of Europe and that the European path was the path of young Bulgarian art. The first trend was the shift from late Revival art to academicism. The artworks demonstrate that Bulgarian authors coped with the assimilation of this tendency extremely quickly. A necessity for change came to the fore. New trends (impressionism, expressionism, etc.) related to the desire to convey a certain state infiltrated the local art world. In parallel, another trend strongly influenced by secession and symbolism began to develop and address the topical issue of the native in Bulgarian art of the 1920s. In the following decades, attention once again shifted to the visible reality and to the topics related to the growing modern city. The interest in reality exemplified by the works of Bulgarian artists from the 1930s was a general tendency in the European artistic space, developing in different dimensions and in different artistic centers (New Objectivity, metaphysical painting). Several main threads constantly intertwine in the presented exhibition: the drive for modernization, the problem of the native and the question of visible reality and its recreation.

The exposition includes works by some of the most significant authors in Bulgarian art: Nikola Petrov, Nikola Tanev, Goshka Datsov, Boris Georgiev, Ivan Milev, Nikolay Rainov, Ivan Lazarov, Kiril Tsonev, Ivan Nenov, Sirak Skitnik and others. The exhibition shows works from the collections of the National Gallery in Sofia, the Boris Georgiev City Art Gallery in Varna, the Plovdiv City Art Gallery and other art galleries, museums and private collections.

Curator: Lyuben Domozetski