1971, Paintings (painting by the artist Ivan Nenov Maiden) 1 Bulgarian stotinka

Paintings (painting by the artist Ivan Nenov Maiden) 

1971, Paintings (painting by the artist Ivan Nenov Maiden) 1 Bulgarian stotinka

Text: Paintings (painting by the artist Ivan Nenov Maiden) 1 CT

Condition: Ø = used/cancelled

Title:   Paintings

Face value:     1

Stamp Currency:       Bulgarian stotinka

Country/area:            Bulgaria

Year:   1971

Set:     1971 Paintings

Stamp number in set:           1

Basic colour:  Multi-coloured

Exact colour: 

Usage:            Franking

Type:   Stamp

Theme:           Paintings

Stamp subject:           painting by the artist Ivan Nenov

Michel number:         2106

Yvert number:                       

Scott number:                        

Stanley Gibbons number:   

Printing office:            

Perforation:    K 14

Printing:         Photogravure

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Ivan Nenov "Maiden", one stamp from series,

A life of 95 years in 100 artworks: these are the naked facts about the troubled life and career of Ivan Nenov featured by a jubilee exhibition, unveiled on 24 April at the Sofia City Art Gallery on the occasion of the 110th anniversary of the painter. The show runs until 10 June. This is the most extensive retrospective ever staged of the work of one of the greatest Bulgarian painters, representing a key milestone in Bulgarian twentieth-century art.

During his lifetime, Ivan Nenov never enjoyed the benefit of a solo exhibition. Just the other way around, all attempts at displaying his paintings were thwarted.

A team of experts has worked to fill in the blanks in his work, which is a rare occasion. All big state-run galleries as well as private collectors lent his artworks. The documentary aspect of the exhibition was borrowed from the Archives State Agency. It features drawings and sketches, awards, diplomas and photographs, related to the artist's life and career. Some of them are exhibited for the first time.

The relatively small number of artworks, which Ivan Nenov left behind, is due to the fact that his studio was reduced to ashes in the bombings of Sofia in the early 1940s. In the 1950s he was 'silenced' as he was condemned for being a 'formalist' and did not exhibit for decades.

Presently, visitors can see his Self-Portrait, his graduation work from the School of Fine Arts, Sofia. Among his earliest works in classical style, the portrait of his wife Ekaterina Savova, also an artist, is the most interesting one. Along with that, in the 1920s he painted in the vein of Art Nouveau, which was all the vogue at the time. Parallels with Picasso could be drawn in Embrace (1936) and with post-cubism and futurism in Signora Rossi, Lola and Summer. Alongside are the quite realistic Portrait of A Gypsy Woman and the famous Maiden, a work favoured by the art critics in the socialist era.

A group of paintings, which have become Ivan Nenov's hallmark, is central to the exhibition: women in front of mirrors or the famous balconies of Sozopol with views of the sea. These have been rendered in a special translucent tonality transmitting exquisite airiness to the works. It is a special technique, which he developed and which is inimitable, so his paintings cannot be faked.

Ivan Nenov was the first Bulgarian artist to discover the non-utilitarian function of ceramics making earthenware into artworks. In the 1950, he immersed himself into the art of pottery as he was dismissed from the National Academy of Fine Arts and prohibited from exhibiting his paintings. Unlike many of his colleagues, he would never compromise. He was not afraid to be left all alone within the walls of his studio to pay the high price at which freedom comes.