Exhibition 80 YEARS GAZDOV | GLOBAL GRAPHICS

Ivan Eduard Gazdov (b. 1945, Yambol, Bulgaria) graduated from the High School of Arts in Sofia in 1964 and from the National Academy of Art in 1970. He specialised at Gerrit Rietveld Academie, Amsterdam, Netherlands (1978) and subsequently in Krakow and Warsaw, Poland (1980). In the period 1970–1976, he worked as an artist at the Design Centre – the first professional graphic design studio in Bulgaria, with Stefan Kanchev as consultant.

 

From 1973 to 1994, Iwan Gazdov was successively part-time assistant professor, full-time assistant professor, associate professor and professor at the National Academy of Art. By decision of the Academic Council of the National Academy of Art in 1990, Ivan Gazdov initiated the Visual Fantasy Club, where he presented active Bulgarian artists and theorists. Subsequently, "Visual Fantasy" was included as a discipline in the Poster and Visual Communication curriculum. From 1995 to 2005, Prof. Gazdov was the Head of the Department of Poster and Visual Communication, and in the period 1999–2003 – the Rector of the National Academy of Art.

 

The artist works in the field of graphics, poster and illustration. He has presented more than 50 solo exhibitions and participated in over 200 collective exhibitions in Bulgaria and abroad. He is the winner of 34 fine arts awards – 20 national and 14 international, of which 5 from competitions in Japan. He is the author of GRAPHICATURE – his own graphic style developed in 1987 and established with more than 30 exhibitions in Bulgaria and abroad. In 1978, he also presented the first exhibition with authorship posters – an idea established with his large monograph AUTHORSHIP POSTER, acknowledged internationally by the renowned artists Shigeo Fukuda and Kazumasa Nagai from Japan.

 

Prof. Gazdov has authored 20 specialised art albums and books, incl. specialised editions on poster. 2 monographs have been published about the artist: "Black Radiance" by Dr. Petko Petkov and "Graphic Antitheses" by Prof. Magardich Kasapyan. "BY and ABOUT Ivan Gazdov" (2006) is a publication featuring articles, critical studies, and opinion texts by and about the artist.

 

Works by Prof. Gazdov are part of private collections and the public collections of over 20 Bulgarian and foreign art galleries and museums: Museum of Modern Art, Toyama, Japan; Neue Zamlung Museum of Modern Art, Munich, Germany; Musée Fornet, Paris, France (Silhouette Game series); Poster Museum, Warsaw, Poland; Poster Museum, Fort Collins, Colorado, USA (regular exhibiting artist for 20 years at the invitation of the institution); Meryl Berman Collection, USA; Design Museum, Zurich, Switzerland, 2021; The Slaveykov's School in Tryavna (since 1994 permanent exposition); George Papazov Art Gallery, Yambol, Bulgaria (own exposition hall/fund), etc.