Access to National Galleries

I’ve been a bit sniffy in the past about Sofia’s National Gallery of Art – so let me take my hat off to them for their display of digital facilities. I was a bit annoyed on Thursday to be denied access to an exhibition of Nouveau Art’s Nikola Rainov (for reasons of some private party) but was placated by being given the opportunity to use a smart phone to access some 200 watercolours of the past century which have not so far been available to the public – along with useful information about the painters.

This is part of a wider project of gradual digitization of the entire archive of the museum in 2015.

I managed to see the Rainov exhibition the following day – you don’t often see his work. And it was accompanied by a superb small catalogue – sadly almost entirely monolingual.

Running in a neighbouring room, was another delightful small exhibition of urban life here a hundred years ago – with a charming video of an elderly lady displaying various artefacts from the period.

And my ever-ready camera was able to catch this shot of a very sharply-dressed elderly visitor to the gallery…..

Lack of translation is one of two features which used to distinguish the National Gallery from the municipal one across the road – whose catalogues have been bilingual for quite some years. The second feature is pricing – the national Gallery used to charge 5 euros (now 3 – with pensioners half price). The municipal gallery was free – until last year when a nominal charge was introduced (with pensioners free). 

It reminded me of one of my political colleagues in the 1970s Janey Buchan (who became an MEP in the 1979), She was a tireless advocate in the 60s of the rights of ordinary people (before the days of the Consumer Association) and was particularly strong on the importance of free entry to museums and art galleries, Thatcher put pressure on to introduce charges (although the British Museum held out) but entry was made free again in 2001 – with significant subsequent increases in visitors.

And I was glad to see that the Neil Mc Gregor, the renowned Director of the British Museum had declined an invitation to direct New York’s Metropolitan Museum because it charged an entry fee.   

The attitude of Sofia City Gallery is yet another proof of the superiority of municipal to central government

Last sanctuaries of originality

In the increasingly homoegenised world in which we sadly now exist, second-hand bookshops and private art galleries are the last sanctuaries of originality, discovery and ambience. 

My booklet on Bulgarian Realist painters lists 16 private galleries here in Sofia – focussing on those which sell the more classic painters of the last century. Almost by definition, there’s not much room to move around in such galleries – most of the paintings are in piles against the wall or in storerooms. They have a great atmosphere – compared with the more clinical aspect of some contemporary galleries. The Inter Nos Gallery – which I mentioned yesterday – is a perfect example of that atmosphere.

Valerie Filipov is an interesting example of a dealer who used to have such an Aladdin’s Cave but now operates in the more clinical setting of The Impression Art Gallery, 11 Vasil Levski Bvd which holds special exhibitions of contemporary artists. Trouble with this approach is that it takes less than 5 minutes to see the display! I vastly preferred the serendipity of his previous Cave!      

Last week I said hello to Biliana Djingova who opened the A and B gallery last year at 45, Tsar Assen St for special exhibitions of contemporaries - and was very taken with Maria Bogdanova, a few of whose works are showing (see above) - as are her husband’s. A wonderful balance of precision, colour and humour. Bulgaria is lucky at the moment in having a few artists (eg Angela Minkova, Natasha Atanassova, Nikolai Tiholov) who have this combination. This is a Tiholov of mine

And yesterday I visited the small Loran Gallery and discovered a painter from the early part of last century - Petko Zadgorski (1902-1974).

The Gallery had marked his birthday with a recent exhibition of his work. They also carried on their nice tradition of publishing a catalogue to go with the exhibition and have quite a few of his paintings for sale on their well-organised website.

Zadgorski was born in Sliven but spent most of his life at Burgas where he developed his love of the sea – as you can see from this example of his painting. And the Burgas Municipal Gallery (one of the few I have so far not been able to visit) has a nice little outline of his work

The Loran Gallery seems to be the best organised of all the private galleries I know – frequent special exhibitions, catalogues to promote the artists, a good reserve of paintings for sale, active website……Of course The Victoria Gallery, as Sofia’s only auction house, has a great website and catalogue for each of its auctions (there’s one on Thursday) when more than 200 artefacts are usually for sale.

Regular readers will know I am a great fan of Astry Gallery here in Sofia  whose owner Vihra Pesheva singlehandedly seeks out and promotes living artists – young and old – with frequent special exhibitions and materials. But the reason Astry Gallery scores is that so much is crammed into such a small space; that Vihra shares her enthusiasm so readily; and I never feel I am imposing….. This is what I said last year about the Gallery -

Astry Gallery (under Vihra's tutelage) is unique for me amongst the Sofia galleries in encouraging contemporary Bulgarian painting. Two things are unique - first the frequency of the special exhibitions; but mainly that Vihra follows her passion (not fashion). I am not an art professional - but Vihra has a real art of creating an atmosphere in which people like me can explore. I have been to a couple of other exhibition openings here and they were, sadly, full of what I call "pseuds" - people who talked loudly (mostly Embassy people) and had little interest in the paintings (except perhaps their investment value). Vihra and her Astry Gallery attract real people who share her passion and curiousity. It is always a joy to pop in there - and talk to her, visitors, artists, other collectors and her father.

And that is also the case with Yassen Gollevi of Konus Gallery who is in his own right a serious painter and teacher at the Art Academy.

New painters - and wine

I’m not the only one casting my mind back to the murderous behaviour from which this part of the world has suffered in the past century as Empires came unstuck and national fervour gripped men’s minds. Eastern Approaches and Open Education both have postings on the Balkan Wars of a hundred years ago.

These (and other) wars were, of course, an important focus for many Bulgarian painters some of whom were official war artists.

My booklet on Bulgarian Realist painters was very much a first draft – I felt if I waited for the missing information on various painters, nothing would ever be produced. And it’s only now that I’m back in Sofia that I can think properly about its distribution – so far it has been sent only to the Sofia galleries, to Regional municipal galleries and to EC Embassies in Sofia. With encouraging responses (apart from the Embassies!) It’s a useful calling card to show how serious I am! Now I need to approach the big Hotels – and the National Gallery who (amazingly) don’t really have anything for the foreign visitor.

And, slowly I can update the entries both on artists and galleries. Yesterday was a good example. The Inter Nos Gallery (sadly its website no longer seems active) is just at the junction of Bvds Levski and Ignatieff  (just round the corner from where Alexander Bozhinov built his house in Nikolai Pavlovich St) and has I think the best collection of the Bulgarian Realist painters in the country.
This wasn’t obvious to me on my first few visits – and I got to feeling guilty about visiting more since I haven’t so far bought anything.
But when Dr Stephanov saw my booklet, he opened up and I discovered some great paintings – and promises of more since (like many other Sofia galleryists) they have more stuff stored away in inaccessible places than on display.
So, for example, one painter whose name was known to me - Constantine Mikrenski (1921-1999) – suddenly started to look very interesting (eg the one at the top of this post). My entry about him in the book is no more than his date of birth and death.
Why is it that I want to know more about the (dead) painters I like? Technically, it adds little to my appreciation - perhaps its intimations of mortality?

There are a lot of articles (and books) predicting the disappearance of the book. New Criterion has published an article with a very elegant (and passionate) defence of the book (and elegy to the death of second-hand bookshops) which I thoroughly recommend   

Once, staying overnight at an airport hotel in Los Angeles, I found myself without a book. How this happened I can no longer recall; it was most unusual, for by far the most useful lesson that life has taught me, and one that I almost always heed, is never to go anywhere without a book. (In Africa, I have found that reading a book is an excellent way of overcoming officials’ obstructionism. They obstruct in order to extract a bribe to remove the obstruction; but once they see you settled down for the long term, as it were, with a fat book, Moby-Dick, say, they eventually recognize defeat. Indeed, I owe it to African officialdom that I have read Moby-Dick; I might otherwise never have got through it.)Reduced in my Los Angeles room to a choice between television and the yellow pages—no doubt now also on the verge of extinction—I chose the yellow pages, and there discovered just how unusual my obsession with books was. I looked up bookstores, and found no more than half a page. Teeth-whitening dentists, on the other hand, who promised a completely renewed existence to their clients, a confident smile being the secret of success, and success of happiness, took up more than twenty pages. Not poets, then, but teeth-whitening dentists, are now the unacknowledged legislators of the world.

Now sipping a superb new Bulgarian Chardonnay - Ethno - produced in the village of Sungurlare inland from Burgas on the Black Sea.

Private collections

A mixed experience at the recently re-opened National Gallery of Art here in Sofia. It had been closed for refurbishment for almost a year (still is according to its website) and, frankly, is worse than it was before – with one major room still under repair and a small and inferior exhibition of the Bulgarian classics. Only the first few paintings by Mitov, Murkvichka and Vesin stood out from the collection.
Sadly they also have a really stupid display of contemporary “art” taking up some of the restricted space. Hardly surprisingly, they could offer me no book on their permanent collection – although I was able to buy a very nicely presented book about Alexander Bozhinov which the Gallery had produced in 1999. It's amazing the number of such books about its artists which Bulgaria has produced over the years. I've built up a nice little library collection!

The saving grace was the superb temporary exhibition they have of Hungarian works from the Gabor Kovacs collection

Gábor Kovács has been purchasing works of art for fifteen years, with the intention of creating a collection that offers a worthy representation of the history of modern Hungarian painting. Covering the period from the early 18th century to the present, the collection is comprised of more than 250 masterpieces.
The collection offers an almost complete account of the development that began with the Romantic and Realistic landscape representations of the 19th century, continued with the plein air painting of the Nagybánya school (now Baie Mare in Romania) and ended with the ”isms” of the first decades of the 20th century. Continuously enlarged, the Gábor Kovács Collection is one of the most prestigious private art collections in Hungary.

János Vaszary was one artist who caught my eye.

This is the first time I have seen an exhibition of a private collector – and follows hard on my spotting a stunning new book in the Humanitas bookshop in Bucharest about Romanian art collectors. It was in Romanian – but profusely illustrated and showing that we are not alone in our walls being crammed with paintings. In trying to find reference to it online, I came across this interesting site about private art collections in central Europe which contains this useful entry on Bulgaria’s first collectors

Two more paintings were added to my own collection yesterday – another Nikolai Tiholov

and a small Toni Todorov from Vihra’s current exhibition of that artist.

That brings my collection of Bulgarian paintings to about 120 – 100 of them by known artists, the others anonymous   

Fine example of 1980s art

Hats off (again!) to Vihra Pesheva of Astry Gallery here who has mounted another wonderful celebration of an older Bulgarian artist. This time it is a extensive collection of the work of Vassil Valev from the 1980s. Valev was born in 1934 in a village near Burgas – and his oil and aquarelle work from this period focusses on that. He was Director for a time of Targovishte Art Gallery and is now still a Professor. His intro on the website says simply -

I was born in the village where I spent my childhood and teen years. Many of my stories relate to the village: Cow yards, neighbours gossiping, rural suburbs, rural toil. Even my landscapes from Sofia are the suburbs rather than the noisy city centre. The characters in my paintings are working people, often elderly, those suffering…

AsVihra puts it – "Bulgaria’s period under the socialist regime still arouses complex emotions. The art from this period is, variously, denied, ignored or treated as a collector’s genre rather than appreciated individually. But it is part of our cultural heritage and Vassil Valev’s work offers a rare depth". Whether showing tobacco harvesters, Iraqi nomads or family groups, the works (often gouache) show a deep human sympathy.
Vihra does not have a lot of space in her small gallery - but this time her exhibition offers not only the oils on the wall but a collection of unmounted aquarelles in folders. The average price is about 500 levs. Some of them, for me, have the Ilyia Beshkov touch.
All this in addition to the display of oils and small scupltures in the entrance area from other living artists always makes her gallery a joy to visit.

An interesting conversation in Dobrich

Dobrich in some 30 kilomtres inland from Balchik and has the look and feel of a town double its official size of 93,000 citizens. Its central square is one of the largest I have ever seen – and is adorned by various large buildings, one of which (previously the Court of Justice built under the "occupation") now houses the extensive art collection – which you can find listed on the town’s excellent (English) website (at the end of its list of cultural centres)
While we were admiring the small special exhibition of Vladimir Dmitrov- he Master’s work, we were approached by the Gallery’s Director, Evelina Handzhieva who speaks excellent French and, very graciously, gave us a personal tour of her domain. It started with a group of schoolkids who were receiving some interactive training in the process of paper-making – the gallery, uniquely, has a collection of paperworks produced by the participants of a recent international event held here.
Separate sections are devoted to the gallery’s collection of sculptures and prints – and to local artists as well as old masters - such as this rare work of Ivan Mrkvichka (1856-1938),

one of two Czechs (the other is Jaroslav Vesin) who are credited with setting Bulgarian painting on its modern path.

The breadth of the collection is one of the widest I have seen (with a nice mix of older and contemporary). The exhibition space is so extensive that the tour took more than an hour – with Daniela being loaned a coat to protect her against the cold (no heating again).

I was very taken with this contemporary work by Plaven Valchev (born 1951).
I have been nicely received in all of the Regional galleries I have visited in Bulgaria – but this was the first time I was able to have a proper conversation about the problems of running galleries here at this time. Over a cup of tea, Evelina (like all the Directors here I’ve met an artist herself) explained that it is the Ministry of Culture who set a formula which dictates the number of staff to which regional galleries are entitled. So much for local government autonomy!! And, in Dobrich’s case, with such an huge palace, the staff of 12 (including 2 cleaners and 3 attendants) is simply insufficient. There is no surveillance system - so security is labour-intensive.
As was evident from the number of brochures, the Director is highly proactive in seeking out opportunities for marketing and funding (A Swiss Foundation was mentioned) and the Gallery’s CD lists the various international exhibitions (eg China and Slovakia) which have been mounted with the support of Embassies here. But it is an uphill struggle – a good venture of bussing tourists from the beaches nearby during the summer fizzled out.
It is not easy to produce a winning formula for such a problem. But one thing is clear for me – it requires local solutions and this means removing the dead hand of central control – and encouraging networking between galleries (national and international), hotels, businesses (eg the new owners of the rich agricultural land and the golf courses!!) and educational establishments.
Don't get me wrong - national financial support needs to be maintained (otherwise the galleries could be at more risk)) but on the basis of more imagination......

This is a detail of the Valchev painting

Artists' Paradise

Bulgaria's North-East (like most of its other extremities) is pretty poor. It has known better days. The Black Sea was like a mill pond yesterday – and the blue skies and sun had Balchik’s small promenade full. The small town which clings to the white sandstone cliffs is popular with both Bulgarians and Romanians – it is only 30 kilometres or so from the border and did indeed belong to Romania for almost 30 years. After the Second Balkan War, in 1913, the town, styled Balcic, became part of the Kingdom of Romania and was much loved by its Queen Mary. It was regained by Bulgaria during World War I (1916–1919), but Romania restored its authority when hostilities in the region ceased. Quite a lot of the Romanian bourgeoisie built villas - many of which have collapsed due to the soil subsidence which is a problem in the area.
But in 1940, just before the outbreak of World War II in the region, Balchik was ceded by Romania to Bulgaria. When we were last here - 10 years ago (on the way back from a trip to Turkey) - our landlady lowered her voice to speak Romanian.

The town’s art gallery has apparently paintings from that period by Romanian artists – who were charmed by the strong muslim air the town had in those days. The gallery’s website understandably uses the language of "occupation” when it talks about “the group of eleven Romanian artists who have painted Balchik during the occupation of Dobroudzha”. The group includes two favourites of mine - Alexandru Satmari and Samuel Mutzner. Many Bulgarian artists have taken the air here - not least Mario Zhekov (I don't think the villa shown in this painting of his survives) - and the area also boasts famous cliffs further north.
Sadly, however, the permanent collection was closed - due to reconstruction (as with Shumen, the charming young woman could offer no firm date for its re-opening). But a few of the Romanian paintings were on display - as well as a temporary exhibition of paintings by an 84 year old Nedelcho Nanov - mostly miniatures of the area painted variously in the 1960s and 2000s.
He is now based in Sofia - and this "Interior" was, for me, particularly intriguing.


A trip north to Kavarna - which was also a painter's haunt - was, however, disappointing. The town has been built back from the sea - and a curious remote stretch of road leads to the sea and to an eerie ghost town of half-finished modern blocks of tourist flats. The one positive feature of the town was its gleaming new sports facilities.....
A forest of wind turbines as we approached the town suggested a progressive mayor - but turned out to be linked to horrific new golf courses and the usual allien complexes of the rich associated with them. There was even a special Italian/Bulgarian furniture chain standing at the side of the road out of Balchik catering for these aliens. "Green" electricity is apparently more expensive than the local!
Tomorrow we hope to see the Dobrich Art Gallery collection the way back to Sofia (they assure me that it is possible to see the permanent exhibits!). That gallery offers a first for Bulgarian regional galleries – a blog!

setting priorities in municipal services

Razgrad's Ivan Petrov Gallery proved worth the wait. Housed in a superb, modernised and specially-designed building (with EC funding) in the heart of the town right next to the well-kept mosque, it has an enthusiastic Director, Todor Todorov, who personally showed us round the collection on display. This included about 6 Danail Dechevs, a Tanev, a Boris Denev, several Vladimir Dimitrovs and two painters so far unknown to me - Maxim Tsankov (1877-1965) and Kosta Petrov (1894-1973).

Unfortunately Vodaphone here in Romania does not give me the capacity to upload a photo from my camera - that will have to await my return to Bulgaria (on Sunday we go to a workshop at Balcik on the Black Sea for a couple of days. The art gallery there is also well worth a visit - as befits an area which has  attracted so many painters.)  In the meantime I post another example of Dechev's work which has smaller capacity.

Razgrad's permanent exhibition also includes an excellent graphics collection.

The gallery’s catalogue is the best I have seen – with coloured reproductions and English as well as Bulgarian notes on the paintings and painters. It also has a website – although still, clearly, in the process of construction.

Razgrad's gallery, therefore, must go to the top of my unofficial list of best housed, managed and documented regional galleries in Bulgaria - with Stara Zagora a close second. Russe is the worst. Of course, these are not necessarily the best criteria - for example the poorly-housed Targovishte Gallery was abuzz with a group of school-kids - and the unheated Skitnik gallery in Sliven sponsors an annual Plein Air summer school. Such local acess and use should clearly be the core of the mission of any art gallery.

I find these differences an interesting example of the effects and importance of local government - although I've made the point here before that the proper maintenance of older paintings which are part of a country's national patrimony has national significance. The lack of heating which threatens so many paintings in Bulgaria's regional art galleries is a disgrace - but perhaps it is too easy to put this down to lack of municipal funding. I found it curious that one of the galleries I visited had  7 staff.  Of course I never like to recommend job-shedding but, in this case, perhaps lack of heating simplyshows a poor sense of budgetary priorities!

The Razgrad Gallery is the only one I have seen which has used Regional Funds to make such a major refurbishment - which shows both official initiative and political support. I still have to visit Balcik, Burgas, Dobrich, Veliko Tarnovo and Pleven Galleries - and pay homage at Svishtosh to Nikola Tanev. I doubt, however, whether I will find a better gallery!

A Year Ago;
I offered a very useful annotated bibliography on the economic aspects of social change.

A painting privilege in Shumen

Another workshop at Targovishte – and the morning swim and exercise we have now started in Sofia (just round the corner in at Rodina Hotel) left no time to pop in to see the Veliko Tornovo Gallery (about which I haven’t heard anything in any case). But I had learned that Shumen has an interesting gallery from this link I had accidentally come across. The town of Shumen (80 kms from Varna and the Black Sea) is a bit unprepossessing as you drive in – with decaying 1950s residential blocks. But its centre is a pleasant surprise, with one the largest pedestrian areas I have ever seen – with trees, a theatre, statues and a mountain range behind. Its upper side is graced with a series of old, large official buildings – of which a mock Italian palace (the police station) is perhaps the most interesting.  

The Elena Karamihaylova Gallery was known only by two elderly ladies and was initially a disappointment – since the second floor containing the permanent collection was closed for reconstruction. But conversations with 3 (of the 7) staff managed to convey our love of Bulgarian painting and the Director graciously presented us with an attractive pack containing 20 postcards of the paintings, a CD and a small booklet giving the history of the collection and short notes on the artists.

When, however, I mentioned the name Alexander Moutafov (who was apparently born in Shumen), it was literally the key to open an Aladdin;s Cave.

Valentina Velikova, the paintings expert, took us to the archives where we saw the collection (of 1,300 items) stored and filed. And she was kind enough to find and pull out for our inspection various portraits by Elena Karamihaylova and paintings by Nikola Tanev, Alexander Moutafov and Stanio Stamatov. Marvellous to have a chance to handle such work. And great that a small gallery should have developed such a nice pack. They are rare amongsdt Regional galleries in having a CD - only Kazanlak (so far on my travels) has offered such a product. It is so simple, cheap to creat - and so necessary given the large numbers of paintings which are doomed to spend their life in basement archives!

 During the journey, I had said that I did not think that Brits had made their home in this part of the country - but, on the way back to the hotel, we popped into a Lidl supermarket and got into conversation with a british couple who have been living in a village outside Shumen for the past 5 years. They told us that quite a few Brits were in the area.

Sliven's excellent galleries

Sliven, with 100,000 inhabitants, is half the size of neighbouring Stara Zagora; also has a dramatic location with mountains rising sheer from behind; but has a more run-down appearance. I associate the town with two things – the painter Dobre Dobrev (198-1973) and excellent white wine (Vini Sliven which has become very difficult to find now in Sofia; Windy Hills I have not yet tasted)!

And the town has done Dobrev proud – with some 50 of his paintings on permanent display in a superb National Revival house. Here I found the painting which had so attracted me in the special exhibition mounted 2 years ago by the Sofia City Gallery - with the fingers of the man at the cafe so clearly drawn!
I was taken to the Gallery by Evelin who had been kind enough to show me round the Sirak Stitnik Gallery which is the town’s main gallery – with a collection just as good as that I saw the previous day in the neighbouring town.
Not only the country’s greats such as Tanev, Abadjiev and Boris Denev but a special exhibition of the graphics of a new painter for me - Kozuharev, Nikola (1892-1971).

He's famous apparently for his mythological and historical paintings but was also a war artist - covering the Balkan War and First World Wars - and some of these sketches were on display.
This painting is of the capture of Bulgaria's greatest freedom-fighter - Vassil Levski.
Unfortunately, there was no heating in the place - like the Russe and Targovishte galleries

A good display in Stara Zagora

Stara Zagora was reached in exactly 3 hours – along an excellent motorway which, however, peters out at that point. It has a superb location with the Balkan mountains as a majestic backcloth. It was completely destroyed by the Turks in 1877  for welcoming the Russian army of General Gurko and was subsequently rebuilt on a strict grid-plan with leafy Boulevards.

I therefore had no problems finding the Art gallery which is a most impressive one – well maintained and offering, for 1 euro, 3 separate exhibitions.

The permament one displays some of the works of the many painters who have been born and worked there – eg  Anton Mitov, Mario Zhekov and Atanas Mihov (1879-1974) who, with Zhekov and Dobre Dobrev, is now becoming one of my real favourites. Paintings by Nikola Tanev, Ivan Penkov (below) and Moutafov were also on display.

The Gallery also offered a collection of women’s portraits and, finally, a display of woodcuts and graphics in a temperature controlled room.

A superb book The Artists of Stara Zagora was also available - produced by the Gallery Director Marin Dobrev who was kind enough to sign it for me. And I was allowed to snap many of the paintings – without flash, of course. The exhibits were so enthralling I spent almost two hours in total there – with a return visit after the lunchbreak.

Many new names – eg Vasil Marinov and a great portraitist Elizabeth Konsulova-Vazova (1881-1965)

Neglect of Bulgarian painting patrimony

We reached Razgrad via a quiet country road from Targovishte with the sparkling snow fading as we hit the vineyards. Razgrad is a fairly isolated town of 40-50,000 people lying on the plain between Russe on the Danube and Varna on the Black Sea. Its town centre is clean and lively – with the huge mosque (which I have on one of my paintings) acting as the centre for the pedestrian area in which the attractive and modern-looking municipal gallery is located.
Typically however, it being 12.10, it was closed for the long lunch break and – despite the seductive poster advertising a special exhibition – we moved on for Russe on the basis that we could visit next week when a workshop is being held nearby.

I’ve wanted to visit the Russe municipal gallery for some time – the town, after all, has more than 200,000 people; has been an important port on the Danube for a long time; and has a proud tradition of culture – with quite a few well-known painters to its name eg Marko Monev. And the gallery was not difficult to find – the girls in the OBV petrol station at the central station roundabout knew it was just round the corner. However the gallery is in a scandalous state for such a city – with (a) no heating and (b) the paintings in one of the three rooms lying propped on the floor with no means of identification. Unlike all the other regional galleries I’ve visited in Bulgaria, the Russe one charges for entrance – OK only 50 pence - but that does raise expectations a little. No Monev paintings were on display but there were some superb works from Vladimir Dmitrov-Maistera, Atanas Mihov, Benchko Obreshkov and Nenko Balkanski – all, however, at risk from the disgraceful conditions. What was even more galling was that an expensive book was on offer – at 25 euros – celebrating 75 years of the gallery. It must have cost 5,000 euros to produce – money which would have been much better spent to keep the paintings in a safer condition.
I can understand the galleries of smaller municipalities being in poor conditions – but there is asolutely no excuse for this neglect for a city such as Russe. Places like Razgrad and Kazanlak – with one fifth of the population – clearly do so much better! Pity the poor young warden who sat wrapped up and freezing in his cubicle as I happily snapped the choicer exhibits.
What sort of future does he have? He shrugged his shoulders when I asked about the Monev paintings – and smiled sadly when I asked if there was a feedback book available for me to make my comments! At the very least, the city authorities should relocate the paintings to a smaller place which is easier to heat! And it doesn’t take much money to produce a CD of the gallery collection.
Of course art galleries are a municipal responsibility and rightly so. And the Sofia and Kazanluk galleries show what can be done by committed local authorities and staff – with both organising special exhibitions and having a range of products (including CDs) for sale. But the protection of Bulgarian painting patrimony is surely a national issue.

Sofia City Gallery scores again!

The Sofia City Art Gallery has put together another excellent exhibition – this time to honour the memory of the Bulgarian Association of New Artists which was active from 1931 to after 1944. Founded in Sofia, its objective was to unite artists with similar aesthetic viewpoints who espoused new trends in art in keeping with movements in western Europe in the 1920s and 1930s. Although its first members worked primarily in a realistic manner, around 1936—when membership had grown to 55—other Bulgarian artists who had studied and worked in Paris, Munich and Vienna joined its ranks. Artists such as Alexandar Zhendov, BENCHO OBRESHKOV, Boris Eliseev, Vera Nedkova, David Perets, Eliezer Alshekh, IVAN NENOV, Kiril Petrov and KIRIL TSONEV contributed more modernist approaches, rejecting academic art, folkloric elements and especially the ideas of Social Realism put into practice by the founders of the Society. An internet review said its members created works with a „sophisticated approach to style, a purity of form and a stable internal structure”. But this sort of jargon doesn’t tell me anything – and I have to say that, much as I appreciate this insight into the historical developments of Bulgarian painting and the imaginative way the City Gallery has dealt with it (with blow-ups of the agonised press receptions of the time addorning the gallery’s pillars), this is not a genre which particularly appeals to me. But I was deeply impressed with the graphics of Vesselin Staikov and the work of Ivan Penkov and Bronka Gyurova. After 1944 the New Artists’ Society was absorbed by the Union of Bulgarian Artists . Many of those who had been members of the Society were declared ‘bourgeois artists’ by the Communist regime and were no longer able to take part in exhibitions; several, including Alshekh, Elisev and Perets, emigrated.
The frequency of these special exhibitions at the City Gallery (which always borrow works from the country’s regional galleries) contrasts so favourably with the lack of imagination shown by the National Gallery just across the road which never changes its permanent exhibition and rarely puts on worthwhile specials (I do remember a great tanev exhibition they mounted a year or so ago. The National Gallery charges about 5 euros – and the City Gallery is free. Therein lies a lessons about the better service generally offered by local government!
The graphic is one of Vesselin Staikov's at the exhibition. In addition to engravings with themes from nature, old towns and mountain villages, Staikov produced a cycle of engravings on the modern city: Sofia with its modern architecture, the clearing of rubble after the air-raids and the construction of new houses and buildings. The artist is also fond of doing ancient, strangely shaped trees. Labour themes occupy an important place in Staikov’s work. He shows love and understanding for the worker, the peasant. Some engravings reflect the romanticism of Bulgarian scenery and architecture, others – the primitive force and ruggedness of the village landscape. .

Living without the luxuries

Monday early saw me at the Military hospital again – this time to a floor so munificent it must have been designed for the Generals and Admirals! High uric acid was confirmed and I was referred to a specialist colleague who has put me on a diet for a few weeks which excludes alcohol and meat. What a torture to be in Bulgaria and denied access to its superb wines and rakias! Particulary after rediscovering the shop which supplies Karlovo wines straight from the barrel! And ironic that the post from a year ago reproduced the text from a gravestone which celebrated someone's skills in producing drink
Reminds me of the refrain in my favourite Romanian poem – "cut out the wine!”.
The post from the 21st is also worth looking at again - it traced the writing over the past 50 years which has tried (unsuccessfully it seems) to persuade us to live a simpler and more social life
The New Yorker has a good piece of background reporting on one of the key figures behind the Occupy Wall St movement.

And a UK Think Tank has issued a report on some of the elements of the "good society” which has become an important theme in one strand of social democratic re-thinking in Europe.

It’s nice to be able to report on one celebrity figure actually helping to create a more sustainable form of housing.

Finally, it's the time of the year when Vihra of the Astry Gallery here delights us with her 30by30 annual exhibition The sketch is an Ilyia Beshkov - very appropriate!

Salute to the local municipal galleries

Thursday I spent on a very pleasant drive from Velingrad in the Rhodope mountains to Bucharest (500 kms) – first through the gorge I spoke about; then east across the Thracian plain with a spectacular glowering sky; a hop past Stara Zagora over another mountain; and pulled in at Kazanluk on the basis of what I had read about its Art Gallery. And I was not disappointed. I was warmly received by Daniela who introduced me to their collection which included the Stanio Stamatov featured above – he was one of many local painters. Indeed the small town was so prolific with artists that it used to be called „the town of a hundred painters”. The collection is therefore a rich one - of both paintings and sculptures - and, amongst those whose acquaintance I made were Vasil Barakov (1902-1991); a scupltor Hristo Pessev (1923-2000); and Spas Zawgrov (1908-1991) born in a nearby village whose landscapes and portrait sketches were in a temporary exhibition funded by his family. Hristo Genev, the Director, welcomed me into his den and presented me with a couple of discs (one of his own material). He sculpts the most fascinating pieces from wood – one of which I displayed a couple of posts back. This is a gallery worth a detour to see – and many revisits!

I don’t often look at yahoo stories - but this is a useful bit of pleading for the simpler life we should be leading.

There are definite advantages in attending workshops which are in languages one doesn't understand! It forces you to use other senses to understand what is going on - to look at body language, for example. And it also gives me the time to reflect - eg I suddenly remembered the paper I had written in 2008 about Training assessment Tools which have different examples which could be used at the different stages of the training cycle. I duly had it printed it out and gave it to the Council of Ministers rep who was also attending the Vilengrad session (since they had insisted on a simplistic evaluation form being used). I will add this shortly to my website.
And I was also able to read more closely the paper on Training and Beyond; seeking better practices for capacity development by Jenny Pearson which I referred to recently - which sets out very well the critique of training I was myself struggling toward in my own 2008 paper.

Finally three good articles on the Chinese mood. The first about a rare critical article on Mao by an 82 year old Chinese economist. Then a good piece on the competition for the new leadership positions.
The last is particuarly interesting - since it gives an insight into how systematic is the Chinese way of researching issues.

In praise of Sofia

One of my readers was shocked that I was contemplating „leaving Romania” – if only for an 18 month project in Serbia or Bulgaria. As long as I have my house in that beautiful stretch of the Carpathians, it will be difficult to leave the country – although it does stretch my patience a lot. And work in neighbouring countries (Turkey is also still a desirable possibility – although not technically a neighbour) is not inconsistent with continued access to Romania. But Sofia and Brussels are, for me, the ideal cities – and Sofia has a special charm.. Yesterday was an example. I decided to head out and buy the large book on the graphic artist I had discovered by accident – Boris Angeloushev (1902-1966). I learn that his evocation of the black and white graphics of the early 20th century German artist Kathe Kollwitz arises from the fact that he was trained in Berlin Art Academy in the early 1920 at precisely the period she was most active in the struggle for socialism there. Since I first discovered her in Berlin in the 1980s I have been a great fan – and recall also the serendipidy of my encounter with the marvellous 80 year-old Tina von Schullenberg in Duisberg (I think) who was being honoured at a special exhibition of her graphics – which included the skecthes she had done in the 1930s of Nottingham miners. She was gracious enough to gift me with a set to give to the Scottish mining community and also a couple of books (with sketches) she wrote about her time with the Nottingham miners and about her life. And what a life! She was the brother of one of the Generals who took part in the failed July 1944 assassination attempt on Hitler.
At a tram stop I come across another of these open stalls and pick up a collection of reproductions of Russian painters - not far away I pick up 5 great Fondazione Amadeus CDs of baroque music - for less than a euro each. No questions!!
Then a meeting with Blago, my young landlord, who is about to acquire a flat he thinks will interest me for my idea of a base here for the next 12 months (if the Serbia project does not come off) – and he is right. The ground floor of a delightful old house within minutes of Vitosha street and all my galleries. The timing fits – since it will be the end of the month before all the paperwork and slight adjustments are needed and that is the point at which I expect to hear the results of the Serbia project. I also look at a flat he will have for sale nearby which is in its original state and which they will restructure togive a living room of 50 sq metres. It would be a good investement. Then off to see what the guy who sold me sketches (on an old magazine and scraps of paper) purporting to be from the pen of the great Ilia Beshkov has to offer. Beshkov (see example above) worked in the first half of the 20th Century. My bearded gallerist/artist Alexander Aleandriev (at Tsar Assen 38) has a tiny space in which there is room for a chair in which you sit while he pulls things (like rabbits out of a hat) that might interest you from plastic bags and piles of papers, magazines, drawings, aquarelles and oils (some his). This time he had prepared for me a superb large 1958 book with Beshkov sketches and cartoons on glorious paper and a 1965 autobiography full also of the sketches. I snapped them up – along with a 1907 catalogue of another cartoonist I had not heard of – Alexander Boshinov - and got a 1941 newspaper with a couple of Beshkov sketches thrown in as a bonus. "Super dumping prices" he says in his only English! We communicate in Russian - and he is indeed a veritable Russian figure with his beard, flow of words and bohemian work environment.
Then off for my appointment with another gallerist – who is also sitting amidst huge piles of unframed paintings some of which he had prepared for me. I sift through a couple of hundred – and emerge with seven paintings (including a Mateev and a dramatic painting by one Ivan Getsov (1910-1991)of a scene from the war of independence) for just over 1,000 euros in total.
I just have time to take them home and change – and it’s off to a very pleasant dinner with Sylvie and Vlad, from whom I rented my flat in Sofia 3 years ago. A simple salad with a very quaffable Pomorie raki starts the meal in her beautifully spacious flat; followed by a superb delicacy she calls Tsarograd aubergine which has pieces of garlic, Bulgarian white cheese and herbs on a grilled opened-out aubergine base. Tsarograd is - as I learned from the early Mario Zhekov paintings - the old name for Istanbul. Vlad is heading out for a night on the tiles - so I get his garlic aubergine too! The piece-de-resistance is, however, the neck pork stuffed/marinated with three types of cheese!! I want a second helping but know when to call time! Thank you Sylvie!

The point of this long diary entry is simply to say that I don’t have such an active social life in other places. That’s why Sofia scores.

patrimony in Bulgaria and Romania

One of my links is with Valentin Mandache's website which is a glorious one-man campaign celebrating and trying to protect Romanian's architectural heritage. A recent posting was of the typical fate of a 100 year old paddle steamer - sold for 7,000 euros to a local butcher and mafia company rather than be restored by public authorities (ideally using local labour and helping retain traditional skills) and made accessible to the public as happens in Scotland and most European countries.

Bulgaria has a better understanding of its architectural heritage - with at least 6 specially protected villages. And I have to pay tribute to some of the Brits whose individual restoration of buidlings has also helped (Brits are not interested in the Romanian housing market).
But even the Bulgarians are in danger of undervaluing their painting heritage. One of my dream projects is to help edit a proper book in English which would make the Bulgarian painters of the twentieth century better known to the English speaking world. Thanks to my various friends in the Sofia art galleries, I’m now able to reel off enough names on visits to new galleries to make people’s jaws drop – and I do have examples of well-known painters such as Zhekov, Vassilev and Mechkuevska . However, going by the paintings available on the websites of Victoria gallery and Domino Gallery, I know only about ten per cent of those who worked then.
I thought I was on to something when I encountered the latter since it is entitled Bulgarian Art Galleries – but discovered that only 2 galleries are subscribed (Shumen and Tyrgoviste) although the site does give about 100 of Mario Zhekov’s paintings as against Victoria’s 41. I remember the delight of the Smolyan Art Gallery in the Rhodope mountains – and yet, 2 years ago, they didn’t have enough money for proper maintenance of the paintings let alone for setting up a website or printing a proper catalogue or postcards. I offered to help set up a website or produce a gallery - but their budgetary system couldn't apparently cope with such a donation! Our visit to Varna's art gallery on Saturday was disappointing - with none of their 20th century work on display. Instead there was a special tribute to one of their local artists - Alexander Kaprichev - who suffered from depression and died all too early in 2008.
In Brussels recently, I found an interesting booklet (in French) on modern Bulgarian art - produced by the Bulgarian Ministry of Culture in 1947. And I did notice that Ruhmen had quite a formidable collection of art books in his langauge - including a superb one on the painters from who were born in Stara Zagora (including Mario Zhekov). Next visit I should spend some time with such books!
The painting above is by Denyo Chokanov (1901-1982)a couple of whose paintings I am very happy to have in my collection