Burgas, 1925 – Sofia, 2013
He was born in Burgas, though his parents were refugees from the village of Mokraina—today’s Variko in Florina, Greece. From 1939 to 1941, he attended the Gymnasium in Burgas, where he apprenticed with the distinguished artist Petko Zadgorski, who encouraged him to pursue art. He graduated from the National Academy of Arts, where he studied under Iliya Petrov, and also attended Dechko Uzunov’s studio. He became deeply involved in union activity, serving for twenty years on the council of the Union of Bulgarian Artists (from 1953). Between 1975 and 1985 he was Director of the National Gallery, and is still regarded as one of its most successful directors, having strengthened the institution and enriched its collections. As a painter, he was interested in the human figure and the landscape. His early works, realist in style, reflected the influence of his teacher Uzunov, depicting fishermen, factories, cityscapes, and landscapes. Later, his landscapes developed a symbolic character, with idyllic, dreamlike atmospheres expressed through the use of cool tones and almost monochrome compositions. From the mid-1980s, his painting became increasingly abstract, with clear Expressionist influences. His first solo exhibition was held in Sofia in 1962. Other shows followed, most notably his retrospective at the Raiko Aleksiev Gallery in Sofia in 2005, marking his eightieth birthday. He participated in many group exhibitions in Bulgaria and abroad. In 2025, to mark the centenary of his birth, the National Gallery of Bulgaria organized a major retrospective exhibition curated by Aneliya Nikolaeva and Ivan Milev. His works are held in the National Gallery of Bulgaria, the Sofia City Art Gallery, the Petko Zadgorski Museum in Burgas, among others.