site.btaNew Permanent Exhibition in Kazanlak Features 30 Works by Painter Dechko Uzunov

A new permanent exhibition of the Dechko Uzunov House-Museum in Kazanlak has been officially unveiled. It features 30 works by the renown Bulgarian painter. 

The house-museum is a branch of Art Gallery Kazanlak, whose Director Plamen Petrov said that the building bears the memory of the path Uzunov followed almost his entire life. Each of the rooms has its topic telling the story of how the collection came to be. 

The biggest - and last - donation of works came in 1987 from Uzunov's third and last wife, Olga Uzunova, about whom little is known. "I hope that documents will be found so that we can tell more about her, because she accompanied the artist until his dying breath and not only cared for him and his atelier but also carried out his will to form the museum in Sofia, today's Sofia City Art Gallery, as well as to donate more than 90 works to the author's birth town," Petrov said. 

He explained that the idea for the new exhibition came from Uzunov's statement, "We will change this house's basement into a gallery. There, some of my students will make exhibitions. Nothing here should look like a museum. I am alive, after all." It took the Art Gallery Kazanlak's team more than a year to prepare the exhibition, as the majority of the paintings had to be restored and cleaned. In Petrov's words, they tried to create a more intimate setting that does not look like a sterile and conservative museum space but rather an atelier where one can sit down, think, and read facts about each of the exhibited works. 

The exhibition will be on display at Dechko Uzunov House-Museum at least for three years. It will be equipped with audio guides to broaden the information about the works and the painter. A space is being prepared for screening films dedicated to him and the people he communicated with. 

On the occasion of Dechko Uzunov's 125th anniversary, a donation is expected of his only diary, written at the end of his life. The diary will be an organic part of the collection and will be published along with his entire collective managed by Art Gallery Kazanlak, Petrov said.