Zlatyu Boyadzhiev

Biography

In his youth Boyadzhiev spent some time as a postman in Burgas. He went there without telling anyone, after growing tired of his job as a clerk at the district court in Brezovo.

He was born on 22 October 1903 in the village of Brezovo. His father, a peasant well off by village standards, sent his eldest son to the Commercial High School in Plovdiv, but after a year Zlatyu left because of poor marks. Back home, he worked as an archivist at the district court, writing and delivering summonses. Then came Burgas and the post office. Later, back in Brezovo, he did finish the Commercial High School after all, but never went into trade. The sources differ slightly on his date of birth: 22 October is the usual date, 23 October occasionally given. In the 1920s he found his way into the studio of Geo Mirchev, a sign painter who acted as a kind of patron to local artists. There he met Vasil Barakov, and later David Perets joined them. The three studied at the Academy of Fine Arts under Professor Tseno Todorov and shared a flat in Sofia. The nickname “the Baraks” (after a Bulgarian breed of hunting dog) was given to them by Tsanko Lavrenov. Boyadzhiev graduated from the academy in 1932, lived in Plovdiv for a time, and in 1936 held a joint exhibition with Vladimir Rilski. Later he had solo exhibitions in Sofia and Plovdiv.

His work is usually divided into two parts, with the dividing line at 1951. That year he suffered a severe stroke: the right side of his body was paralysed, and for several years he did not paint. Then he began to work with his left hand.

Before that he composed calm, almost neoclassical scenes of village life, in a yellowish palette that has been compared to Netherlandish painting of the sixteenth century. “The Village of Brezovo” is assigned to that time. The second manner is different: grotesque figures, dozens of characters on a single canvas, expressive colour. Among the known works of the later period are “At the Table” and “Two Weddings”; there are also “Portrait of My Mother” and “Family Portrait”. To my mind, the sharpness of this change cannot be explained by illness alone, but I have seen no documents that would allow one to speak of inner causes. In socialist Bulgaria Boyadzhiev enjoyed great standing and fitted comfortably into the art life of the time. He received the titles of People’s Artist and Hero of Socialist Labour, as well as the prize of the Union of Bulgarian Artists named after Vladimir Dimitrov-the Master. As an actor he appeared once, in a small part as a painter in the film “Tree Without Roots”.

Boyadzhiev died on 2 February 1976 in Plovdiv. At the funeral the painter Svetlin Rusev singled out his picture “The Swineherd Woman”, whose heroine, in Rusev’s words, “had gathered into herself all the torment and weariness of the universe”. His paintings are kept in house museums in Plovdiv and Blagoevgrad and in the National Gallery in Sofia. His son Georgi Boyadzhiev (born 1939) also became a painter.