The renovated National Art Gallery opens with an exhibition of Vladimir Dimitrov – the Master

One of the most imposing buildings in Sofia, the former King’s Palace, opened for visitors after a major reconstruction. For about 60 years now, it houses the National Arts Gallery. After the repair the floor doesn’t creak anymore, the freshly painted and newly lighted halls reveal the magnificence of the royal palace interior.
In an interview for Radio Bulgaria, the director of the Gallery Slava Ivanova told us more.
“Until recently the installations of the palace caused us a lot of trouble. Now all of the installations: electrical, air-conditioning, piping are renewed. A few years ago, we had to open an exhibition of the artist Eliezer Alcheh on the occasion of his 100th anniversary and suddenly while the whole diplomatic corps was our guest, the electricity died out. I hope that there won’t be such kind of problems now and the new halls will really provide our visitors the comfort characteristic of a contemporary museum. Besides, we have a new security surveillance system – something very important for the safeguarding and the security of the works of art. Another novelty in the gallery is that it’s now accessible for disabled people. There is a platform installed on the central staircase. It allows the access to the central lobby and from there a lift leads people to the 3 floors of the palace. A restoration of the central ballroom also lies ahead. Тhere the ornaments on the walls will be covered with gold – as it was before World War II. Our visitors will be able to see the hall in its whole brilliance after a few months only.”
The project for the reconstruction and repair of the building is carried out by the Ministry of Culture. It amounts to BGN 3.6 million (about 1.8 million euro), granted under EU’s Operational Program “Regional Development”. Another important detail is that after the reconstruction the exhibition area in the gallery increased by about 1000 square meters. This will give museum curators the opportunity to add the collection of Bulgarian art from the second half of XX century to the standing exhibition. Thereby, the younger generation will be able to get an idea of talented authors unknown for them until recently.
The renovated Museum of Bulgarian Art /this is the official name of the Gallery/ already attracts visitors with a large scale exhibition of the big Bulgarian artist Vladimir Dimitrov a.k.a. the Master. It is dedicated to his 130th birth anniversary. The exhibition contains over 250 of his works owned by galleries in about 10 Bulgarian cities. They are combined in several thematic series: self-portraits, motherhood, children, flowers, fruits, landscapes from the painter’s travels to Tsargrad, Rome and Siracusa. And, of course, here are the canvases painted in the course of 27 years in the Kyustendil region, the village of Shishkovtsi, which he called “paradise on earth”. Vladimir Dimitrov’s paintings radiate unbelievable energy. They are dedicated to nature, fruitfulness and field work, to ordinary people from the old-time rural Bulgaria, whose beauty the Master perpetuated for the next generations.
The creators of the exhibition decided to build a bridge between what the Master said and what he painted. It is surprising that the highlight is placed on his words and the works are grouped around them. What can we learn about the artist from this way of showing his heritage?
“Before all, in my eyes the Master is an artist who takes the creative process responsibly – Anelia Nikolaeva, art expert and curator in NAG says. – He himself used to say that he repeatedly went over the same pattern and studied it in different color schemes and styles. He called these exercises “reviews”. Our exhibition displays such texts which will help our visitors understand how hard the Master had worked… For example he took a lot of time to paint just one flower, but he himself said that one must paint the flower in such a way, as if to reflect the unity in the universe. From this standpoint, we can define his view of life as that of an artist whose turn of mind is set on nature, who sees there the eternity and the cosmos. People, of course, are part of this and the artist always tried to look for the ancient tie between human beings and nature.”
“In any idea I handle, I actually depict the eternal life. Even if I paint just a flower, it’s important to reflect the unity of the eternal life, of the universe…”– the artist used to say in his lifetime. This is why the motto of the exhibition is “The Master, the Flower and the Universe.”
“The Master is an artist whose characters at first sight are drawn from everyday life, from people’s daily work – says art expert Katja Tineva, also a curator in the Gallery. – The portraits which he painted, the series of young girls for example, have actual prototypes. Through them he was trying to recreate the spiritual, the pure, to find the most beautiful qualities that people possess… And indeed, there is so much poetry in the people and their work, in the harvesters in the fields, in the girls who sing there while having a rest, in the mother who goes home embracing her infant child. These are images where we find eternity,” art expert Katja Tineva told Radio Bulgaria.

Text and photo: bnr.com