A New Book by Prof. Milena Georgieva, PhD

The longtime study of Prof. Milena Georgieva, PhD, The Speech of Flowers. Anna Hen-Yosifova (1872–1931), ed. Panorama of the Union of Translators in Bulgaria with the support of Culture NF is a new album monograph about this artist of German origin, one of the first female artists in Bulgaria. The book consists of three chapters, appendices, and a catalogue of her work. In the first chapter, the artist is presented biographically against her family background and intellectual environment in Braunschweig, her studies in the Netherlands, and her life in Bulgaria as an active member of the Contemporary Art Society. The author comments on new facts about her participation abroad (Paris, etc.), offering some new interpretations of her creative presence in Bulgaria. The next chapter analyses her merits as a flower artist – a new genre in Bulgarian art. It traces the Dutch contribution to the painting of floral still lifes and the Bulgarian tradition as a world-view attitude to the flower in folklore, artistic crafts, and the first appearances of flowers in Bulgarian still life after the Liberation. A semantic typology of the flowers preferred by the artist and an analysis of her style were made. The third chapter is devoted to the applied work of Anna Hen-Yosifova, considered in the context of women’s participation in the first exhibitions of artistic societies. The appendices present memories of her, unknown photographs, letters, and documents from her personal archive. The first-time systematization of the art material in the catalogue part is of particular importance.