Exhibition Honouring Bulgarian Book Illustrator Lyuben Zidarov Opens in Plovdiv

BTA Correspondent Ani Mihaylova, Filip Pavlov

Lyuben Zidarov, 100 Years exhibition in Plovdiv (BTA Photo/Ani Mihaylova)

Plovdiv, Southern Bulgaria,

05.09.2025 11:49

(BTA)

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An exhibition entitled Lyuben Zidarov, 100 Years opened in Plovdiv on Friday. Visitors viewed the characters from dozens of illustrated classic works of world literature such as Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn, Long John Silver, Ali Baba, Harry Potter, as well as many of the emblematic portraits and illustrations of Lyuben Zidarov.

"When a beloved person, even more so an author, even more so connected to art, leaves, he never really leaves. He is in me, he is between us, he is here for us. I even think that he was involved in this complex arrangement for the last four days", art critic Filip Zidarov, son of Lyuben Zidarov, said during the opening. He thanked the institutions and private collectors that provided works for the exhibition, many of them inaccessible or almost never shown in collections.

There is something unusual in the fact that the curator of this exhibition is both the author's son and a professional, an art historian, an art critic and an art critic, Zidarov pointed out. "And also for decades I can proudly say, (I was) something of a partner in tandem with my father, with whom we almost jointly implemented most of his exhibition and publishing projects over the years," he added.

He emphasized that the large wall carpet entitled My City is being shown for the first time outside of Sofia and specified that in the exhibited cycles, which are favorites of the public and collectors, there is a mixture between illustration and painting, where the illustration becomes increasingly picturesque and the painting increasingly narrative.

Zidarov commented that some of his father's most characteristic traits were his sense of humour, sarcasm and self-irony, noting that when his father repeatedly illustrated some of his favourite works and authors such as Hans Christian Andersen, he would say that he could understand the writer only after reaching his age.

"This is an example of the wisdom of great literature, as it can be read and understood in the same way by young children, by adolescents, by older people, by adults, and even by old people," Zidarov pointed out.

The exhibition can be seen until September 26. The National Gallery, the Sofia Art Gallery, the Plovdiv Art Gallery, the Sofia Museum of the National Academy of Arts, the Museum of the Interior Ministry, the galleries in Pazardzhik, Veliko Tarnovo, Kazanlak, Ruse and the Gabrovo House of Humor and Satire are participating in the exhibition with works from their collections.

Lyuben Zidarov (1923-2023) is one of the most recognizable and beloved Bulgarian illustrators. Recognized as one of the creators of the modern trend in Bulgarian illustration from the 1960s, Lyuben Zidarov is also one of the founders of the drawn comic in Bulgaria and the artist of Slaveyche (1957), the first illustrated children's magazine in the country. His rich creative biography includes hundreds of classic works from world and Bulgarian literature. He was nominated for the international Andersen Award and the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award, and won a silver and gold medal from the Leipzig and Moscow book fairs.

/MR/