The sculpture collection at Hristo Tsokev Art Gallery offers a large-scale survey of the development of the Bulgarian plastic arts tradition. Despite the few works that it contains in comparison with the rest of the collections at the gallery, the Sculpture Fund features prominent names from the most active and significant generations of artists in Bulgaria.
A fundamental part of the museum exhibits in the Sculpture Fund has been acquired through the General Art Exhibitions “Man and Labor” (1974-1988) and through donations made by Botyo Barakov (1993), but yet another significant part of them are donations and repurchases from local authors.
Painting a complete picture of Bulgarian sculpture is incredibly difficult due to the influences made by outside schools, traditions and trends in global art. A big part of the most popular and well-established artists such as Andrey Nikolov and Lyubomir Dalchev specialized in Italy and other Western countries. Apart from that, the works from the socialist period do not only reflect the ideological references of the time but a number of modernist influences as well. All of these dynamic processes have impacted the image of the contemporary Bulgarian plastic arts tradition which also contains in itself influences from the Ancient cultures that lived on Bulgarian land.
Looking at the sculpture collection in the art gallery prompts one to notice that a few fundamental groups from different generations of artists have been included. For example, Andrey Nikolov, Marko Markov, Ivan Mandov are representatives of the classical way of shaping figures. They were succeeded by Lyubomir Dalchev, Krum Damyanov, Pavel Koychev, Galin Malakchiev, Panayot Dimitrov, Mityo Solakov, Kancho Tsanev, who redefined shape using the symbolism of the mystical, Balkan mythology and Bulgarian history. On the other hand, Angel Stanev, Margarita Pueva, Emil Popov, Ziyatin Nuriev, Ivan Rusev, Bogomil Zhivkov and Vezhdi Rashidov paint the picture of contemporary Bulgarian sculpture. The dimensions and contributions of these artists are supranational, as Bulgarian sculpture is not isolated and autonomous when it comes to global tendencies in culture and art.
Dr. Deyan Boev
Translation by Gabriela Hristova
