Ivan Lazarov

In the history of Bulgarian art, one author has left his strong trail that passes inadvertently through the first half of the 20th century. This is the sculptor Ivan Lazarov. His first steps were made some 130 years ago in a household in Karlovo. 

Few basic pillars of life – events and circumstances – demarcated Lazarov's development as an artist. In the first place, that is probably – to put it figuratively – the Karlovo household or Bulgarian ordinary life, culture and traditions; the National Liberation spirit and the old art, which was preserved in our churches and monasteries; Bulgarian peasant life and its inhabitants – be it people or animals. 

He graduated from the State Drawing and Industrial School (today the National Academy of Arts, Sofia), which Lazarov finished in 1912 and where he was a professor later on and was three times its rector. The next important event to leave its trace within his sculpture is the Balkan war. 

The impression of it gave rise to the first plastically and meaningfully united group of works. The trips and the stays abroad gave the author the opportunity to get acquainted both with the contemporary art tendencies, and with the cultural heritage of the past. His social activity, strongly reflected by the works, where he realizes his theoretical conception of creating monuments at our country in general, is another important aspect of the development of his art.