Exhibition

This exhibition presents 19 Bulgarian illustrators of children’s books at the 62nd Bologna Children’s Book Fair (March 31–April 3, 2025). It is a kind of continuation and update of the selection from the exhibition Joy, Sadness and Hope, part of Bulgaria’s national pavilion at the Bologna Fair in 2024. Our aim is to create a current, albeit subjective, picture of contemporary Bulgarian illustration. To introduce a wider audience of amateurs and professionals to its specific characteristics and achievements, focusing on the richness and diversity of artistic styles. The selected artists are representatives of several generations – some of them are well established, while others are still building their careers. We exhibit one illustration each from a specific book and preparatory drawings that lift the curtain on the creative process. Scanning the QR code leads to the added content on the project website booksforkids.bg →

The added content on the website includes a database in a compact format with information about the featured artists and publications. There you will read the curatorial texts; view a gallery of illustrations, preparatory drawings, and details of the published book; and learn more about the authors, getting acquainted with their biographies and other books by them. In the current exhibition and its accompanying catalogue, for convenience we have included the selection from the exhibition Joy, Sadness and Hope from last year. The face of our project in 2024 was the bear (3) by Kiril Zlatkov from the book When I Want to Keep Silent (author Zornitsa Hristova). This hypnotic image won many admirers during the Bologna fair, and the subsequent edition in Italian from Orecchio Acerbo, in a translation by Neva Micheva, underwent three printings in a short period of time and continues to enjoy the attention of the public. This year, the bear has “passed the baton” to Svetlyo and his friend Dog (4), characters from the book To Put It Mildly by the beloved Bulgarian classic author Valeri Petrov. Illustrated by Lyuba Haleva, the publication is part of the 2019 Hristo G. Danov award-winning series.

The current exhibition, Chasing Words, also includes The Sleep Button, illustrated by Maria Nalbantova (5, 6), from the same series, as well as books honored with other Bulgarian and international awards, such as The Adventures of Pinocchio with illustrations by Iassen Ghiuselev; the debut Head-Over-Heels Hoopie (author Tanya Petkova), illustrated by Katrin Eftimova; and books by writer-illustrators – Maria Gulemetova’s Beyond the Fence and Lullabies for Fairies and Monsters by Sotir Gelev. We would like to emphasize that this selection is not a ranking of any sort, nor does it claim to be exhaustive – it is but another step forward in the popularization of Bulgarian children’s books, and more specifically – of their illustration. That is why the exhibition is the center of the Bulgarian Books for Kids stand this year.

Children’s illustration in Bulgaria has its own tradition, its stronger and weaker periods. Its development has naturally been influenced by historical events and social changes, but also by important absences or presences – such as the iconic books that have reached Bulgarian children in translation. Their illustrations have shaped the taste of generations of readers and artists alike, who in turn influence the style of the younger generations. Art schools and academies also play a role in this cycle, as undoubtedly do publishers, whose policies and practices influence the look and artistic qualities of illustrated children's publications. But the role of the illustrator is truly pivotal: a hunter who chases after words, a magical translator into images. The process from text to image is individual for each artist, but it most often begins with the sketch. For some, the preparation for the illustrations takes many months, as is the case, for example, with Maria Gulemetova in the remarkable book Beyond the Fence. She made hundreds of pencil, ink, and watercolor drawings before finding the image of the despotic boy and his friend, a tame piglet who longs for freedom (8).

Kiril Zlatkov, for his part, draws in a sketchbook with pen and ink, turning emotional states into metaphors. Lyuba Haleva works on ordinary A4 copy paper in pencil before finally composing her magnificent collages in Photoshop. Iassen Ghiuselev’s virtuoso drawings for Pinocchio (14) seem to decide the final result already at this stage — the composition, characters, and gestures are as convincing as in the printed book. We are privileged to be able to examine the artist’s work up close. And to discover in it that little child who greedily devoured the books of their generation, who supplemented the illustrations and filled out the stories to calibrate them to their own personal magical world.

Anton Staykov and Svoboda Tzekova

curators

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Credits

Illustrations introductory text: (1., 2.) Kiril Zlatkov, preparatory drawings for When I Want to Keep Silent, author Zornitsa Hristova, pub. Tochitsa, 2014; (3.) Kiril Zlatkov, detail from When I Want to Keep Silent, author Zornitsa Hristova, pub. Tochitsa, 2014; (4.) Lyuba Haleva, detail from To Put It Mildly, author Valeri Petrov, pub. Colibri, 2018; (5., 6.) Maria Nalbantov, preparatory drawings for The Sleep Button, author Valeri Petrov, pub. Colibri, 2018; (7.) Maria Gulemetova, preparatory drawing for Beyond the Fence, pub. Child’s Play, 2018; (8.) preparatory drawings for Beyond the Fence, pub. Child‘s Play, 2018; (9.) Sotir Gelev, detail from Lullabies for Fairies and Monsters, pub. Enthusiast, 2020; (10.) Nevena Angelova, preparatory drawing for This Is Totally Outrageous, author Victor Samuilov, pub. Janet 45, 2023; (11., 12.) Lyuba Haleva, detail and preparatory drawing for To Put It Mildly, author Valeri Petrov, pub. Colibri, 2018; (13.) Katrin Eftimova, preparatory drawing for Head-Over-Heels Hoopie, author Tanya Petkova, pub. Yasna Kniga, 2023; (14.) Iassen Ghiuselev, preparatory drawing for The Adventures of Pinocchio, author Carlo Collodi, pub. Helikon, 2015; (15.) preparatory drawing for To Put It Mildly, author Valeri Petrov, pub. Colibri, 2018