Georgy Popov-John

Even sophisticated fanciers of fine arts will be amazed at the little-known work of Georgi Popov - John (1906-1960).

Georgi Popov is one of those Bulgarian artists whose creative development is associated with European artistic processes. He lives and works in the first half of the 20th century. Unfortunately, his name is not among the most popular in Bulgarian art, and his varied work is still not enough popularized and thoroughly researched.

He is an interesting person, one of the famous Bulgarian bohemians, a man with a rich spectrum of creative interests. He works in painting a portrait, landscape, nude, still life, figurative composition. He has performed in the field of monumental decorations, graphic design and scenography. He is also a brilliant master of the pen - he writes a series of articles devoted to various cultural events and artistic-plastic problems.

During his creative career John Popov goes through various stages. Particularly fruitful for him proves his stay in Paris from 1930 to 1935 and from 1937 to 1939. During this time he became part of the French artistic life. He got closely acquainted with French art, with representatives of Surrealism, Futurism and Cubism, with its picturesque language of the Paris School. Despite the influences, John Popov keeps his characteristic artistic handwriting.

In the period 1947-1948, the artist lives and works in Sweden where he creates illustrations. Since then, his watercolors are also characterized by their exceptional color.

From the late 1940s until 1960 John Popov worked entirely with a pastel. Develops the theme of "Fishermen" in a cycle of preparatory drawings and paintings, attracted by the genre of the still-life.

An exhibition at the Sofia City Art Gallery in the spring of 2006 included about 75 paintings and drawings and six illustrated books. The works exhibited there are owned by various public galleries, Svetlin Rusev atelier and other private collectors.

John Popov is one of the great masters of Bulgarian fine art, and he has been recognized in recent decades. His class is also a fact in some of his portraits such as "Woman with peacock", "Portrait of Vaska Emanouilova", "Portrait of Dimo" (this is the son of the artist who committed suicide at youth age), "Portrait of Philip Chipev" , "Portrait of Asen Peikov", in which there is a lot of depth, even drama. Very attractive are the sea lanes of Popov.

The World of John Popov's world of big gestures of waving, just so the personality and work of this artist are close enough and it is understood that its value really is not a regional patriotism.