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Self Portrait
Plovdiv, Bulgaria
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Ready for the New Year

My grandson Villi on a 2010 calendar

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Pigeons

Plovdiv, Bulgaria
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Merry Christmas!

Candles in my neighborhood church.

The Holy Mother

More reflections

Jesus Resurrected. Just finished this canvas. Icons take hard work to make, but the joy is worth it.

The stocking I made for my grandson Velichko.

Merry Christmas to all!

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Bell Tower

Plovdiv, Bulgaria
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Last Minute Christams Shopping

Merry Christmas from Plovdiv, Bulgaria
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Christmas around the Fountain

There is no water during the winter but there is a lot of fun around the fountain in downtown Plovdiv, Bulgaria
at Christmas time

Perfect place to park the sleigh

Santa (Dyado Mraz in Bulgarian) is taking a smoke brake with his assistant Snow White ( Snezhanka in Bulgarian). A little Balkan touch to Christmas.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays from Bulgaria!
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Fire Exit

Plovdiv, Bulgaria
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Yellow Crocus

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Frame

Statue in front of the Art Gallery, Plovdiv, Bulgaria
The figure is Tzanko Lavrenov – Bulgarian painter and writer. He was born into an old and well-respected family and graduated from the French College in Plovdiv. Because of World War I, he was not able to enter the Academy of Art in Sofia and instead worked for his father in his shop. His visits to Vienna in 1921 and Italy in 1925 convinced him that he should become a self-taught painter. He was one of the most important artists in Bulgaria in the 20th century, achieving renown for his unique style of painting and for his decorative, brightly colored scenes of legends and fairy tales. After a visit in 1942 to the monasteries in Mt Athos, which inspired such paintings as The Khilandar Monastery (1943) and The Zograph Monastery (1946), he began an extensive series of paintings, Bulgarian Monasteries. From the 1930s to the 1960s he was a member of the so-called ‘Plovdiv Artists’ group, whose art dealt with the spirit and the romantic traditions of that ancient city. Therefore, many of his paintings, such as Old Plovdiv (1930; Sofia, N.A.G.) and Plovdiv’s Renaissance Men (1970; Plovdiv, Tzanko Lavrenov Mus.), evoke the 19th-century atmospheres of Plovdiv and such other old Bulgarian towns as Gabrovo and the former capital Turnovo. Lavrenov also painted subjects from Bulgarian history, as in his series of Visions from Ancient Bulgaria, which included such works as Tsar Simeon I Being Welcomed in Preslav (1941) and the Coronation of Ivailo in Turnovo (1973; Sofia, N.A.G.). After moving to Sofia, he became involved in theoretical research on Bulgarian graphic art and in 1958 published a book on a fellow artist from Plovdiv, Zlatyu Boyadjiev. In accordance with Lavrenov’s will, a Tzanko Lavrenov Museum was established in the house of his birth in Plovdiv, and the majority of his works are located there.
National Art School named after Tzanko Lavrenov
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