Georgi Weltschew

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Georgi Atanasow Weltschew (also written Georgi Atanasov Velchev; Bulgarian Георги Велчев * November 18, 1891 in Varna ; † April 16, 1955 ) was a Bulgarian painter.

Biography and work

Exhibition Georgi Weltschew; Weltschew, second from the right

Georgi Weltschew was born on November 18, 1891 in Varna , Bulgaria. His parents had moved from Sheravna , and his father opened the first bookstore in town. As a schoolboy he traveled to Russia and visited the Hermitage and the Tretyakov Gallery .

In 1910 he entered the art and industrial school in Sofia with Christo Kavarnaliev, Kirill Diulgerov and Jordan Pinkow and studied with Ivan Markwitschka and Stefan Iwanow . During the First World War he was appointed war painter on the staff of the First Army. He was captured and taken to France. After the war, in 1920, he finished his studies. In his early works from 1917 to 1920 he painted under impressionist, post-impressionist and symbolist influences.

Velchev lived in Paris from 1920 to 1922. The oil and gouache works created at this time show his inclination to the painting style of Pierre Bonnard and to the aesthetic principles of the Nabis . From 1923 he lived in Munich, Berlin and Bremen. He had exhibitions in Karlsruhe and Wiesbaden , painted in the mountains of Tyrol , visited Italy and was invited by Heinrich Vogeler to the Worpswede artists' colony .

From 1924 to 1931 he was in New York and exhibited eight times with a good response. He traveled to Miami , San Francisco , Philadelphia , visited Canada and Hawaii . The economic crisis in the US forced him to return to Bulgaria, where he stayed until the end of his life. On the way to Europe he visited Australia and China .

In Bulgaria he lived and worked in his house in Varna. He continued to travel to villages and towns, to mountain and coastal towns - and observed the life of the small Bulgarian world. In his pictures he reproduced the sunny courtyards, the old gates, the bridges and fountains of the village and town houses and streets.

Georgi Weltschew died on April 16, 1955 at the age of 64.

Georgi Velchev Museum and Gallery

After Weltschew's death, his siblings set up a museum in his house. The museum opened in 1961, and his sister Pavlina Weltschewa became the first female curator. The first exhibition of 70 paintings and drawings was redesigned in 1996. Weltschew's works, which he created in France and Germany between 1920 and 1923, were shown for the first time. The focus of the exhibition is on lake images from the 1930s and 1940s.

The museum has five exhibition rooms with a total area of ​​100 m² and a collection of 239 works. Since 2008 it has been a branch of the Varna City Art Gallery “Boris Georgiev”.

Catalogs

In 1970 the catalog "Georgi Velchev" by Vicho Ivanov was published, with a summary of the text in French and Russian. The book contains approx. 48 black and white reproductions as well as sketches from an album by the artist.

An illustrated catalog was published for Georgi Weltschew's 125th birthday in 2016. It contains texts by Plamena Dimitrova-Racheva, Ruzha Marinska and Roumen Serafimov, as well as a detailed biography in which, in addition to his life data, all exhibitions in Bulgaria and abroad are listed.

Web links
personal data
SURNAME Weltschew, Georgi
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Velchev, Georgi; Velchev, Georgi Atanasov (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Bulgarian artist
DATE OF BIRTH November 18, 1891
PLACE OF BIRTH Varna
DATE OF DEATH April 16, 1955