site.btaExhibition 'Vaska Emanuilova and Paris' Launches Celebrations of Sculptor’s 120th Anniversary

"Vaska Emanuilova and Paris" is the first exhibition on the program of the Vaska Emanuilova Gallery, which marks the 120th anniversary of the artist's birth. The exhibition will go on display from February 25 to April 20, the Sofia City Art Gallery said.

The starting point is a text that Vaska created about this city and about her only trip outside the country, in 1939. She recounts how she received a scholarship in Paris, connected with sculpting of a portrait bust of Madame Baelen – the wife of the first secretary of the French legation in Sofia, Jean Baelen. Her acquaintance with the Baelen family was the “lucky coincidence” through which she received the scholarship to Paris.

The exhibition includes three main parts: ‘The Story of a Work’, which tells about the creation of Madame Baelen’s portrait; ‘In the City of Art’, which presents her journals with drawings made in Paris; and ‘Lessons of Paris’, which summarizes the impact that her stay in the French capital – the museums, galleries, and artists – had on the sculptor’s overall body of work. An essential part of the exhibition is the installation with video, sound, and objects by Ralitsa Georgieva, which attempts to present Vaska Emanuilova’s impressions and enrich the story of this important journey of the artist by immersing the audience in her personal memories and the spirit of Paris of the late 1930s.

The exhibition includes sculptures, drawings, archival documents and photographs from the collection of the Vaska Emanuilova Gallery, the Pleven Art Gallery - Svetlin Rusev Collection, the Sofia History Museum, the State Archives Agency, as well as catalogues from the library of the Union of Bulgarian Artists and from the archive of Evgenia Hristova.

In 2025 the Vaska Emanuilova Gallery, a branch of the Sofia City Art Gallery, will mark the 120th anniversary of the birth of the renowned sculptor with a special programme dedicated to the anniversary. A series of exhibitions and an educational program will present the untold past and unfolding present of women artists.