This year marks the 100th Anniversary of the birth of the artist Vassil Yonchev. The “ANCESTRAL MEMORY AND HERITAGE” Exhibition is an attempt to survey the creative work of one of the biggest Bulgarian artistic families – the Yonchevs. A family which still lives on, and its members continue to demonstrate their worth in the fields of painting, graphic art, sculpture, illustration, graphic design, animation, book design, typeface, scenography, costume design, and cinematography. This is a visual story – a document – of the talent’s power.

In 1892, the family’s founder – Dimitar Vassilev Yonchev – was born in Plovdiv. His name is associated with laying the foundations of scenography and costume design in Plovdiv. Due to his dozens of designs elaborated for Plovdiv’s theatrical stage, some of which have been preserved even to this day, Dimitar Yonchev has won recognition as one of the most important names in the town’s theatrical life in the 1920s and the 1930s. Charismatic, talented and Bohemian in terms of spirit, he was the father of five children, to whom he passed on his passion for art. The doyen of the Bulgarian typeface school – Vassil Yonchev – was also amongst these inheritors. The “ANCESTRAL MEMORY AND HERITAGE” Exhibition reveals the history of this family – of its members, whose paths were to cross those of members of the Enev, the Dzhidrov, the Gogov, the Wendt and the Müller families.

The Exhibition shows paintings, graphic art, scenography sketches, costume and book designs, animation, and photography. This is a project that unites the creative work of four generations of artists – 25 professionals altogether. The audience has the opportunity to scrutinize designs of Dimitar Yonchev, Vassil Yonchev’s original illustrations for children’s books, paintings by Zdravko, Dimitar and Iliya Yonchev painted especially for this Exhibition, creative works of the grand master of the cinematographic scenography and an apprentice of Kiril Tsonev and Ivan Penkov – Konstantin Dzhidrov–Dzhidrata. And more: graphic works by the Müller family; Georg Wendt’s photographs, who has photographed the German designer and also a photograph – Karl Lagerfeld.

This Exhibition is the first of its kind, presenting four generations of artists who have left their mark on the history of the Bulgarian