Bulgarian-Romanian art contacts in the 1940s and the 1950s

01 November, 2013 – 01 November, 2015

Author: Rumiana Doncheva, PhD, Fine Arts Department

The science news in the proposed two-year research project on Bulgarian-Romanian art contacts in the 1940s and the 1950s is in the information about the specifics of the significant expositions held in the period with Bulgarian and Romanian participation and about the ambiguous reception of these exhibitions by art reviewers. The science news will be based on an analysis of the displayed art production by Bulgarians and Romanians as well as on the relevant conclusions, drawn from this analysis, which would add to the picture of the then cultural life in Bulgaria. The work will focus on establishing the role of the political environment of the late 1940s through the 1950s in the shaping of professional and public opinions as regards the artistic views over the period. The research project seeks to shed light on the international exchange of the previous century as a significant process in Bulgarian culture, bringing thereby to the fore the dynamism of Bulgarian critical thought’s activities in relation to the actual artistic views in European fine arts of the twentieth century.
The timeliness of the proposed research project was given by the interest of the Institute of Art Studies in cultural exchange with the Balkan countries as well as in the physical and art values created by Bulgarians over the twentieth century. This work is a logical follow-up to my hitherto research work focused on the art life within and outside Bulgaria in the 1920s and the 1930s.