An exhibition titled "Vesselin Staykov – Paintings, Prints, Drawings" opens at the Sofia City Art Gallery on July 3 and runs through July 19, marking the 120th anniversary of the artist's birth. The show presents over 150 works spanning five decades, including paintings, wood engravings, lithographs, etchings, and drawings, with a thematic focus on series such as Melnik, Sozopol, Karlanovo, Sofia, and Forest, as well as impressions from travels to Prague, Paris, Italy, and China. A new emphasis is placed on Staykov's applied work, including stamps and design projects, and the exhibition traces how sketches evolve into paintings and graphic works. It is organized by the Sofia City Art Gallery in partnership with the State Archives Agency, with curators Dr. Stanislava Nikolova and Ana Topalova.
The exhibition matters because it offers a research-driven, fresh reading of Vesselin Staykov, one of the great masters of Bulgarian graphic art, whose legacy has often been underappreciated internationally. By juxtaposing paintings with graphic works from the same period and highlighting his applied art, the show reveals Staykov's lifelong exploration of the interplay between color and line, and his ability to render recurring motifs in different visual languages. This comprehensive presentation, drawing on archives from multiple institutions including the National Gallery – Sofia and the State Museums in Berlin, provides a rare opportunity to understand the creative process of a significant but lesser-known European artist, contributing to the broader recognition of Eastern European modernism.