Holds our Photographers and Photographer specific data

Georgi St. Georgiev

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Born in Kazanlak. He published three monographs: “Photography and Military Science”, “Application of Photography in Archaeological Research” and “Forensic Investigation and Photography”. He took some of the first aerial photographs during the Balkan War of the siege of Edirne, and during the First World War – the first airborne images of the city of Thessaloniki. In 1920, he founded the Bulgarian Photo Club in Sofia, of which he was the Honorary Chairman for many years. He won numerous medals, honorary diplomas and distinctions from a number of prestigious international competitions. He organized over 30 photography contests in Bulgaria. Georgiev published dozens of articles in Bulgarian and foreign magazines. In 1950, on his initiative, the first State College of Cinematography and Photography was established, at which he was the director and teacher. In 1953, he started photo publications in Bulgaria with the unique edition of “Photovesti” and organized the first national exhibition of art photography. NUDE The photographs of Georgi St. Georgiev from the “Nude Photography” collection should be observed with a broader view to perceive their contribution to the transition of our native culture from traditional to modern, as Georgi St. Georgiev is probably the most typical representative of modernism in Bulgarian photography before the Second World War. And it is not by chance that he turned the naked body into his subject, because it has the potential to break down stereotypes and go beyond taboos, which is the aim of the modernists. In order to accept the provocation of traditional morality, however, nudity must be freed and drawn away from naturalistic appearances and transformed into an artistic fiction with distinct symbolic overtones. The nude images of the photographer in the 1930s communicate both ethical and aesthetic rebellion, which in modern art coincide.
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Nikola Stoichkov

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Nikola Stoichkov was born in 1917 in Sofia. He was a professional photojournalist and the winner of the “Golden Feather” award, had dozens of author’s exhibitions in Bulgaria and abroad, participated in the jury of a number of national and international photo exhibitions and was in the leadership of the Club of Photographers in Bulgaria. Stoichkov encouraged the growth of many young photojournalists. On the occasion of the 150th Anniversary of the birth of photography, in 1989 Nikola Stoichkov was awarded a jubilee plaque and a diploma for his contribution to the development of photography in Bulgaria. In 2000, he received the Honorary Diploma and the Honorary ACADEMICA Statuette. 2017 marked the 100th Anniversary of his birth. On this occasion, the Academy of Photography (Bulgaria) dedicated the year to Nikola Stoichkov and fulfilled his dream by publishing a photo album presenting his rich legacy. DAY ONE AFTER THE LAST The exhibition presents photo documents, honest black-and-white pictorial evidence of a bygone era and facts that have yet to be translated impartially and as accurately as possible. The featured collection of photographs presents him not only as a dedicated documentarian, but also as a sensitive artist whose little-known works and reportage portraits reveal the «Homo Photographicus», to whom nothing photographically interesting can be irrelevant. The photographs after September 9 demonstrate how, if the context of the image is changed, suddenly it becomes completely different. It pulls out absolutely antithetical stories from its own core. In fact, at the time he wanted to capture a fresh start, a new, just opening historical page. By showing it now in modern times, we are actually showing the somewhat absurd hope of a failed historical project – the crashed socialist Bulgaria. Uncle Kolyo turned out to be a reporter who has yet to unveil much more than what his reportages first illustrated and the way they had been interpreted. Through this exhibition of Stoichkov, his work entered upon a new artistic life in the Bulgarian cultural environment and bechanced to find its way to the modern audience.

Architect Nikolay Popov

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Arch. Nikolay Popov is one of the fore-runners of Bulgarian art photography, a bright and original talent, one of the classics of Bulgarian photo art. In 1951, he was one of the first to be awarded the title “Fine Art Photography Artist”, and in 1961, for his great mastery and perfect technique, he was awarded the EFIAP distinction. For two decades, he had become visible as an art photographer with a broad general and pictorial culture, brilliant artistic individuality, with a personal signature and style, subtle aesthetic insight, psychological depth, poetic sensitivity, ability for conceptual and artful narrative. A tale of Nessebar The exhibition was displayed for the first time in 1961, being exactly the opposite of the then circulating photo propaganda of the new life. It reveals that life in its spontaneity and familiarity cannot be new, but is always the same. And the fishermen with their nets continue in the black and white images of Arch. Popov to take fish out of the sea, as they always did. The photographer seeks the joy of life away from the offensives of history, which poses in front of his camera only with its stony traces. To him, history together with nature and the bridges that architecture builds between them are nothing more than an exquisite decor of everyday life with its rituals, with its hopes, with its innocence… In front of Arch. Popov’s lens everyday life is far from banal, but poetic, and his poetry arrives in Nessebar “by sea”. He is a classic for yet another reason – time has not been able to devalue anything in his photographs. They could have easily been taken today, as long as someone with his skill and talent is found to preserve in their images coastal life from the ravages of post-commu

Lote Mihaylova

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Lote Mihaylova was born in 1925. She graduated from a Cinema and Photography School. After September 9, 1944, for the first time a nude photo of Lote Mihaylova was exhibited in an exhibition hall in 1963. “For the first time, a nude photograph was presented at a photo exhibition, but the photo “Nude” of Lote Mihaylova was rejected as immoral and decadent, and that enraged the participants,” wrote the witness of the event Petar Boev. “The rebellion ended in a victory for the innovators. The photo “Nude” was not only accepted, but was also awarded a gold medal,” the author points out. Lote Mihaylova is the winner of numerous awards, including two gold medals at the “Photo of the Week” in Munich in 1973. In 2007, she was awarded the prize of the city of Marburg within the framework of the “Social City” program. She is the winner of the Honorary ACADEMICA Statuette. She was awarded by the Ministry of Culture for her outstanding contribution to the development of photography in Bulgaria. ROOTS She avoids contrasts, the sharp opposition of white and black. In the landscape, she prefers subjects where the land’s shapes are not solid, do not weigh down with their substance but seem to fade away in the air… In the portrait, she prefers the image of the woman, the child. At the same time, from the contrasting image of the Mother, she evolved the idea of Motherhood. Apparently insignificant subjects she charged with universal significance, touching in a modern aspect on some of the eternal dilemmas of life: good and evil, betrayal and nobility, sorrow and joy, old age and youth. Her artistic works are described as “poetry in black and white” for being perceived rather emotionally than intellectually.

Petar Bozhkov

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Born in Varna. He was awarded the title “Fine Art Photography Artist”, the EFIAP distinction and was FIAP Lecturer. He was a long-time Fine Art Photographer for “Bulgarian Photography”, an artist, critic, lecturer, author of numerous publications, member of juries, commissions and artistic councils. Petar Bozhkov was the winner of Bulgarian and international awards and participated in national and international events. He is the author of the Land solo exhibition (1973). He worked in all genres, mainly landscapes and reportage portraiture. He perceived the Bulgarian land not as a subject or a geographical concept but as an expression of the Bulgarian quintessence. Petar Bozhkov actively supported the growth of many young talents. In 2000, he was awarded the Honorary Diploma and the Honorary ACADEMICA Statuette for outstanding contribution to the development of photography in Bulgaria. SELECTED WORKS Petar Bozhkov is the classic of Bulgarian photography. And this was acknowledged even in his lifetime, while he was among us. His presence (not to mention that everything he said turned into an aphorism) was the behavior of a classic, but even now, when we look at his works in this exhibition, and he is not with us – yes, this is the ambience, this is what the exhibition tells about. We know where his strength lies – in simultaneously leading an artistic and documentary narrative. Photography usually achieves artistic effects in defiance of its own documentary nature. Petar Bozhkov, in the easiest, most authentic, self-explanatory way, achieved them by an opposite technique combining the documentary with the artistic.