Exhibition on history of Bulgarian photography in 20th century opens on December 9
An exhibition entitled “More than one photo. The history of Bulgarian photography in the 20th century” opens at the Sofia City Art Gallery on December 9 and continues until March 9 2026.
The exhibition’s goal is not only to present the development of Bulgarian photography from 1900 to 2000, but also to take us from the early studio portraits and chronicles of modernity to artistic photography of the end of the century, the gallery said.
Included in it are more than 300 photographs by more than 100 Bulgarian photographers, which construct the living history of photography as art, testimony, and personal narrative.
It is structured chronologically in three sections that trace the development of Bulgarian photography—from the first studios and studio portraits at the beginning of the century, through socialist Bulgaria and photography as a document and testimony, to the last decades of the 20th century, marked by the freedom of the artist’s gaze and the saturation of the world with images.
The main focus of the exhibition is on the artistic qualities of photography, but it also has an informative side.
Through it, one learns a great deal about the time in which the photographs were taken, the gallery said. Human stories reflect the common history of the past decades. Even photographs of a personal nature, over time, move ever further from their original function and become historical documents, revealing their artistic qualities.
(Photo: Boncho Karastoyanov.
The current exhibition does not aim for encyclopaedic exhaustiveness. Its priority is to show artists and works with a significant contribution to the formation of photographic aesthetics in Bulgaria, as well as to pay tribute to those who, with their camera, created the memory of a century from 1900 to 2000.
These hundred years of Bulgarian photography situated on the two floors of the gallery are presented through valuable originals from personal and institutional archives.
(Main photo: Boris Savov)
