20 December 2024 – 30 June 2025
Opening: December 20 (Friday), 18:00
” … Stoyan Venev (true to his own jovial, cheeky and mocking nature) ridiculed the vices of his time or else amused himself with the comical pitfalls of his “heroes”, even when from a purely sociological point of view, the ‘funny’ had deep dramatic dimensions.”
Dimitar Avramov
In 2024, 120 years have passed since the birth of Stoyan Venev – one of our most recognizable artists, a significant figure in Bulgarian art in the last century.
In an attempt to offer a modern look at the artist and, in a way, founding father of Bulgarian art, an exhibition was curated in hall 5 of the Museum of Humor and Satire, presenting 151 of his paintings, cartoons, satirical drawings, sketches and watercolors.
The exhibition includes a screening of 4 documentaries, which provide an opportunity for the audience to get in touch with the artist’s personality.
The story of Stoyan Venev’s work and personality is further developed with literature, catalogs and albums in the Museum Library.
The exhibition is realized with the financial support of the Ministry of Culture and is a joint project between the Museum of Humor and Satire – Gabrovo, Art Gallery “Vladimir Dimitrov – Master” – Kyustendil and partner collectors.
Under the influence of the characteristic works of Stoyan Venev, generations of Bulgarians from their earliest childhood build their ideas and attitude towards the surrounding world, social changes in society, historical processes and events. His name is widely known even today. Bulgarians over middle age recognize the works of the Kyustendil artist. His colorful canvases, cartoons and drawings have long been in galleries and private collections and today are defined with the word “classic”.
Going through his life with as much dynamism as in his art, Venev has always been the object of interest from critics, journalists, colleagues and the general public – an innovator, with a bright sensibility and a single-minded, carefree creativity. In his works, the expressive color, the intimate realism, the insertion of symbolic and allegorical signs, and the social element are impressive.
Stoyan Venev developed as an artist with a keen sense of social tensions and expressed his views through a specific style. He has been widely popular since his youth, a significant exponent of the proletarian line in art between the two world wars, the last of the great representatives of the Rodno Izkustvo (Native Art) movement.
For two decades after the September 9 coup, the artist worked for the “new socialist culture” and for “representational engaged painting”.
In the 1960s, this extremely wayward artist happily returned to his characteristic previous style – to pre-war modernism, the subjective, conditional and primitive, breaking the imposed restrictions – to be truthful and realistic in the generally accepted and expected sense, with predetermined ideologically substantive and style-plastic frames.
Much of his subjects reflect his understanding of criticism as a function of art and his dozens of satirical drawings simultaneously glorify and ridicule, a peculiar mixture between the heroic and the grotesque – “… the same primitive peasants – moustached, wide-eyed, ugly and funny; still the same village festivities and funny anecdotes…” (D. Avramov).
The exhibition includes works by:
Museum of Humor and Satire – Gabrovo, Art Gallery “Vladimir Dimitrov – the Master” – Kyustendil, the private collections of Dr. Rumen Manov and Mr. Ivo Dimitrov.
Exhibition team:
Margarita Dorovska, Valentin Gospodinov, Dimka Koleva – curators
Svetlana Mihaylova – public relations
Eng. Petyo Yordanov – technical assurance
“Mozaika” studio – graphic design
—–
*quote from the article “Stoyan Venev – an original artist of the primitive Bulgarian village” by Dimitar Avramov in kultura.bg from 21.09.2014
The exhibition can be viewed in the virtual tour, which provides freedom of movement and interaction with the exhibition through interactive markers added to the works in it.
