On May 10, 2017, the Sofia Gallery of the Metropolitan Library showed “Unshown Graphics” by the artist-illustrator Rumen Skorchev. The exhibition consists of original graphic illustrations for books that are part of the library’s collection. The author himself donated 50 original prints to the institution years ago. Some of them are being presented to the Bulgarian public for the first time. The exhibition, organized on the occasion of May 11 – Librarian’s Day, is conceived as an illustration of the centuries-old connection between the written word and the visual language. The exhibition includes drawings and lithographs by Rumen Skorchev for lyrics and prose by Bulgarian and foreign authors. The exhibition includes illustrations for Radoy Ralin’s poetry collection “Everything Tells Me” (1975), dedicated to Nikola Furnadzhiev; for Ivan Davidkov’s poetry collection “Boy with a Flashlight” (1981); to Ivaylo Petrov's novel "The Hunt for Wolves" (1982) and to poems by John Keats, Taras Shefchenko and Juan-Ramon Jimenez.
Despite the fundamental differences between the literary works, visitors can enjoy the iconic handwriting and style of the great Bulgarian artist. The drawings, saturated with seemingly chaotic strokes, form symbolic images in the poems and dynamic compositions in the stories. Thus, "The Hunt for Wolves" and "Poems" by Taras Shefchenko sound holistic, general, even conceptual, despite the fact that they were created nearly 40 years ago.
The exhibition also includes the realized editions of the literary works, in which the differences between the original lithographs and the reproduced print are clearly visible.
The exhibition is open to visitors until May 19, 2017.
Photos and text: Milena Radeva
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