Immersing in the surrealist world of one of Bulgaia's most amazing artists

To bill Zlatyu Boyadzhiev (1903-1976) a naivist would be to downplay the talent of a remarkable painter who depicted Bulgarian life. His style, inimitably grotesque, was the result of a brain stroke he suffered in 1951.

Left partially paralysed, he was physically compelled to abandon realism - a style that excelled in, creating masterpieces dedicated to topics from rural life to rapid industrialisation in the 1940s.

The stroke, however, turned him into one of the most outstanding Bulgarian artists. 

Self-portrait

Unable to paint "properly," Boyadzhiev unleashed a genius skill of depicting the people from his surroundings, and his past, both realistically and grotesquely, charmingly and menacingly, engaged in complex compositions. Elaborately planned, his paintings are explosions of life in bright, pure colours: women chat and pray in quaint chapels; men drink, butcher pigs and go hunting; priests hold funeral services over dead bodies; kids ride sledges in an ostensibly chaotic swirl of dramatic, comic and tragic tales.

Today, his paintings are considered classics and are the pride of many art galleries. The best place to immerse yourself in his art, however, is Zlatuy Boyadzhiev Art Gallery, in Plovdiv's Old Town.

It is in a two-storey building, erected in 1858-1860 for Dr Stoyan Chomakov, a leading figure in the 19th century Bulgarian Church independence movement. Having graduated medicine in Italy, he returned to Plovdiv and became the chief surgeon of Bulgaria's first hospital, founded in Plovdiv after the 1878 liberation. In late 19th-early 20th century the house was used as a residence by Prince Ferdinand I of Saxe- Coburg-Gotha, the Bulgarian monarch at the time. In 1984 it was turned into a gallery for Zlatyu Boyadzhiev's art.

The gallery is part of the Ancient Plovdiv Institute