Hristo Neikov and Zlatka Dabova

From September 20 to October 7
at the National Modern Art Exhibition Center at 6 Shipka Street were displayed over 100 works of
Hristo Neikov (1929-1999) and
Zlatka Dabova (1927-1997).

Drawings, black-an-white drawings, unshown paintings, created between 1960 and 1995, reveal the power of the figurative language, the bold, mighty color, the fine pictorial feeling of the two popular artists.

They both graduated at the Art Academy in etching under Prof. Iliya Beshkov. With their very first shows they presented an art, free of foreign influence, original and wide-ranged, which enjoyed the continuous attention of art critics.

The displayed works from the 1970s-1980s reveal the deep, insightful ties with the pagan holidays, the essence of the carnival, the mummers’ games. According to Axinia Djurova, these lithographs, line- and chalk-drawings and aquarelles recreate the attractiveness of the hidden, of the suppressed, the forbidden, the mystery, the magic of the forgotten bashfulness. In the cycles “Konarmia – Isak Babel”, “The Salt of the Earth” Hristo Neikov explores the strange connections man-animal, the pagan, pre-Christian state of the holiday, so crucial for the preservation of the national memory. At the same time, Zlatka Dabova creates a cycle, dedicated to the women in the Rhodope Mountains. Motherhood, the elegance of the female figure, the dance underlie the artist’s creative and ideological transformations. All this done with the tools of the graphic art.

Hristo Neikov and Zlatka Dabova also worked in the field of illustration. She illustrated books for children and adults, worked on schoolbooks and textbooks, even ran a drawing school for children in the town of Samokov in the Zograph House. He made illustrations for children’s books – lithographs, aquarelles, pen-and-ink-drawings, even collages.