A beautiful exhibition, devoted to stained glass can be seen by October 25 in both halls of the Vitra gallery in Sofia. This centuries-oldart gives dignity and grace to temples and castles and later on it decorates public and private buildings – universities, theatres, hospitals, airports, railway stations… The most famous stained glass works in Bulgaria are the ones at Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridksi”, at Varna’s Cathedral, the Central Bank of Bulgaria, the Court Palace, Sofia’s city library, different ministerial buildings etc. However, nowadays stained glass is not very popular here.

“That is actually one of the reasons to set this exhibition,” says for RB Iskra Pavlova, manager of the Vitra gallery. “Because this is a magnificent art, in which unfortunately traditions have been severed, even though we have our talents nowadays… The works exhibited prove that. Famous artists from the past have worked stained glass – Academician Dechko Uzunov, Ivan Penkov, Haralampi Tachev, Georgi Atanasov etc. That is why we have displayed photos of their works in one of the halls, as not everyone knows this fact. Nikola Bukov is one of the authors, who devoted himself to this art during the socialist period. The other hall exhibits works of 21 contemporary artists, 5 of those making their debut here and they do make us happy with their participation. We hope to work in the future with these talented young people.”

At first Iskra Pavlova opened a gallery in Varna. She is exhibiting glass and stained glass for 15 years now. Four years ago she moved the gallery to Sofia, uniting it with the atelier of stained glass master Yuryi Vasilev that she had worked with in Varna. She says that their exhibitions are rare, but high class. “Currently there are no procurements for stained glass in public buildings,” Iskra goes on to say. “The institutions in the past obviously used to think more on the architecture, interior and the overall look of a building.”

The Bulgarian Art Glass Foundation and the Vitra gallery are the organizers of the exhibition. They extend their gratitude to those institutions that have allowed them to take pictures of the stained glass within their buildings. “However, we saw that some of the stained glass needed urgent restoration, others were simply neglected and need cleaning. The situation is most serious at the Museum of the Revival Period in Kotel. Thus the idea was born for cooperation between the Kotel Municipality and the Bulgarian Art Glass Foundation for the collecting of the money needed for their restoration. The bank account can be seen at www.bulgarianartglass.org, as well as on the Facebook page of the NGO.”

The exposition has no commercial purposes, its goal is educational. Young people in Bulgaria are welcome to get acquainted with the development of the art of stained glass via lectures, workshops etc. What is the trend now in this art, in the context of contemporary European searches?

“Our stained glass is very modern and in the vein of current European practices,” Iskra Pavlova goes on to say. “I sent letters to several international organizations, involved in art and stained glass, regarding this exhibition. The response was really good. Professional associations published on their websites information on our event and the Glass is more! Dutch magazine published the whole story, along with photographs from the project. Mr. Mark Angus, an artist, working in Germany and Austria presented us with a nice surprise. The world famous expert in the area of stained glass offered his free participation at one of our next workshops. This is another proof of the expertise of our stained glass artists…”

A photographic version of the exhibition can be seen till October 12 in the subway station at Sofia University. It is planned to visit Varna, Plovdiv, Ruse and Veliko Tarnovo in 2015.

English version: Zhviko Stanchev