Ivan Kirkov

Biography

In 1961 a painting called “By the Sea” hung at the First Youth Exhibition in Sofia. The argument over it was such that the name of its twenty-nine-year-old author became, for years, a byword in Bulgaria for nonconformism.

Ivan Nikolov Kirkov was born on 1 January 1932 in Asenovgrad, which was then called Stanimaka. In 1955 he graduated from the Academy of Art in Sofia, with a degree in painting; his teachers were Professors Kiril Tsonev and Iliya Petrov. From 1957 he took part in group exhibitions, showing portraits, genre compositions and landscapes. In 1959 the Union of Bulgarian Artists awarded him a bronze medal for painting. After the scandal over “By the Sea” his reputation as an opponent of routine was firmly fixed. His first solo exhibition took place only in 1969. It has been said of this painting that it fell within the current of the Severe Style then taking shape in the USSR; I cannot judge from reproductions, but a link with that line in the art of the 1960s looks plausible.

Kirkov worked in very different fields: painting, posters, book illustration, stage design and murals and mosaics for public buildings. He painted portraits, among them those of the writer Yordan Radichkov and the composer Lyuben Zidarov, and designed books by Elin Pelin, Ran Bosilek, Tsanko Tserkovski, Kamen Kalchev, Imre Madách and Ivan Turgenev. In 1961 he made his debut as a film artist, and the film “The Inspector and the Night” came out in 1963. In 1965–1967 he was a stage designer at the Satirical Theatre, making sets for “The Pig Tails” by Jaroslav Dietl, “Mihal Mishoyad” by Sava Dobroplodni, “Candidates for Glory” by Ivan Vazov and “Much Ado About Nothing” by Shakespeare. He also worked at the Vazrazhdane Theatre, and in 1983 he designed the production of the opera “Norma” at the National Opera.

His most prominent works for public buildings date from the 1970s and 1980s. In 1974 he made a 200-square-metre metal relief above the ticket counters in the waiting hall of Sofia Central Station (architect Milko Bechev). In 1976, during the reconstruction of the Ivan Vazov National Theatre, he painted murals and made the curtain. In 1981, together with the architect Georgi Stoilov, he created two stone mosaic panels for the House-Monument of the Bulgarian Communist Party on the summit of Buzludzha: “Welcoming the Soviet Army” and “The Ninth of September 1944”, measuring 13.5 by 3.5 metres. In the same year came a metal relief at the Ludmila Zhivkova Palace of Culture in Sofia. Later works include the mosaic panel “Paisiy” in the party building in Asenovgrad (1982), a mosaic in the drama theatre in Tolbukhin, today’s Dobrich (1983), and a panel in the conference hall of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

At the same time he taught at the Academy, as associate professor from 1974 and as professor from 1985. His students include Svetoslav Tsekov, Chavdar Marinov, Darina Tsureva, Atanas Parushev, Marta Levcheva and many others. He also received a prize for illustration (1969) and the City of Sofia Prize (1976), and was awarded the state title of Honoured Artist.

A retrospective of Kirkov’s work was held at the National Art Gallery in Sofia in October and November 2004. In 2009 the director Atanas Kiryakov made a documentary film about him, “Ivan Kirkov, or Saving Yourself in Memory”. Ivan Kirkov died on 19 September 2010 in Asenovgrad and was buried there. In Sofia, in the Manastirski Livadi district, a street is named after him.