Exhibition GEORGI BAEV – 100 Years Since the Artist's Birth
21 March – 15 April 2024
Opening: 21 March 2024, 6:00 pm
Academia Gallery, 1 Shipka Street, Sofia
Year 2024 marks the 100th birth anniversary of the world-renowned Bulgarian artist Georgi Baev. Highly appreciating the painter's achievements, the Municipality of Burgas, in partnership with the National Academy of Art, organised a retrospective exhibition Georgi Baev. 100 Years Since the Artist's Birth dedicated to the significant anniversary.
During the exhibition opening, Milka Stoeva Children's Choir at the Youth Cultural Center – Burgas, under the direction of Marieta Seklemova and Lili Bedrosyan, piano accompaniment by Miglena Slavova, will perform compositions by Petar Lyondev, Nikolay Kaufman and Georgi Petkov. With its 75-year history, even today Milka Stoeva Children's Choir continues to glorify Bulgaria, following the traditions laid down by its creator Boris Ibrishimov and continued by Ms Milka Stoeva, the long-time conductor of the choir.
At the end of the 1960s and the beginning of the 1970s, Georgi Baev distanced himself from direct copying of nature and started working towards abstract lyricism and the conventionality of the landscape fragment – "Nets" (1974), "Landscape in Blue" (1975), "Beach" (1979).
His most mature period were the 1970s and 1980s, time of dynamic creative activity. The sea became the main theme in his works. Baev's seascapes stand out among the numerous traditional interpretations of the theme by other Bulgarian marine artists with their unexpectedly bright and saturated colours, with generalised and pure forms. Baev's canvases create a feeling of the sea's static beauty, of the proximity of the horizon so much dreamed of.
The burning passion with which Baev worked originated from the power of fire: in 1983, his studio was set on fire and hundreds of works were destroyed. The charred canvases that remained remind us that courage is always a test. In a direct echo of reality, Baev's works gradually became dramatic, the human figure and the concern for man appeared. The colours are dense and saturated, they have a strong psychological aspect. Baev no longer painted boats and the sea, the sky ... because through them he had said what was necessary to express, Baev had changed: This fire shook me so much that after that I made my best exhibition, and that happened within only seven months ... When I am angry and desperate I am most productive. That exhibition made him the winner of the Herder Prize of the Vienna Academy of Art in 1986. It is featured in the 34-volume Dictionary of Art by Macmillan Publishers of London.
Georgi Baev is a symbolic, emblematic name mostly associated with landscape painting from the second half of the 20th century. He was born in 1924 in Burgas. He graduated from the National Academy of Art (1949) with a degree in Painting under professors Iliya Petrov and Dechko Uzunov.
The current exhibition includes 42 works, which trace different periods in the artist's work – from the earliest prints dating back to the 1950s – "Boy" (1957), Drawing" (1957), "The Studio" – to the 1960s, when Baev categorically chose painting as his creative creed – "Morning" (1962), "Boats" (1963). The works "Spring Nights" (1966), "Laundry" and "At the End of the Cycling Track" (1967) are included as well, which are defined by Prof. Aksiniya Dzhurova as emblematic for the development of Bulgarian art then and now.
The paintings in the current exhibition are of the Remembrance cycle and the Barriers series.
Having reached the wisdom of aging, he comes to terms with himself and the world, and returns to the optimism and light of his earlier artistic work, but with a worldview already enriched by life.
The artist was an MP in the VII Great National Assembly (1990–1991).
Georgi Baev died on 18 February 2007 in Burgas.
The exhibition includes works from the fund of Petko Zadgorski Art Gallery – Burgas and the Baev family collection.
Dr Lyudmila Kutieva
Gallery
