Petya Petrova
Petya Petrova is a journalist, believer, and traveler.
National Art Gallery in Sofia, Bulgaria
Sofia, Bulgaria -
If you are an art fan and you have a couple of hours in the capital of Bulgaria, you might find interesting the option to visit the National art gallery, where you will find amazing and unique works.
The National Art Gallery houses over 50,000 pieces of Bulgarian art. It is located on Battenberg Square in Sofia. The National Art Gallery has the country's largest collection of medieval paintings, including more than four thousand icons, a collection comparable in quality and number only to that of the Benaki Museum in Greece.
What can you see?
Square 500 - the newest and largest building of the National Gallery, was opened in 2015. In 28 halls on four levels are exhibited 1,700 works of Bulgarian and foreign artists.
The first museum building, which houses the National Gallery, is the Palace. In its halls are displayed temporary exhibitions of Bulgarian and foreign art.
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The Museum of Christian Art, located in the crypt of the temple-monument "St. Alexander Nevski" was created in 1965 as a branch of the National Gallery.
The Museum of Socialist Art was opened in 2011. It presents works from the period of socialist rule in Bulgaria (1944-1989).
The Sofia Arsenal - Museum of Contemporary Art was opened in 2011. By 2017, its program included nearly 100 events. Apart from all this, the visitors can also visit the museum houses of Nikola Tanev, Vera Nedkova, and Ivan Lazarov.
Visitors can also see many collections, some of which are:
Art on the Bulgarian Lands IV-XIX Century - The collection consists of about 2,000 works - mostly icons and frescoes. The permanent exhibition of the Museum of Christian Art, located in the crypt of the temple-monument "St. Alexander Nevski" presents thematically compact groups of works from different metropolitan and monastery centers.
The National Gallery also has the richest and most complete collection of works of Bulgarian art created in the 20th century - about 30,000 units.
Art XXI Century - The collection includes painting, photography, video art, and installations. The works outline trends in contemporary art and enable reading of its story.
One of the upcoming events you can visit is "Time and Memory in a Box - Photography as a Trial of Oblivion" - "Box of Negatives" shows a story of time. History of dynamics, overcoming, and the movement of the time.
