One of the most interesting late paintings of Tsanko Lavrenov is Gabrovo 1847, ordered and purchased by the Podem Factory in Gabrovo. After the privatization of the factory in the 90’s, the painting mysteriously disappeared. I wonder whether it will ever be found again.
We celebrated 120 years from the birth of Tsanko Lavrenov with the biggest exhibit ever – Between the Modern and the Canon at the Sofia City Gallery and the Plovdiv Art Gallery. We gathered more than 250 works of the artist from galleries, museums and private collections all over the world. The America for Bulgaria Foundation supported us to systemize all the information in a book – the bio, documents, all known paintings and drawings. This is an edition with over 1000 files and 500 pages! The texts in the book are written by seven leading Bulgarian art experts and art historians. It’s a pity that such colossal work has never been done for any Bulgarian artist as our cultural heritage has to be treated with care and respect. While we were working on the book, we discovered art works that we didn’t know existed. We ran across a diary of a lady containing four gorgeous sketches from Vienna. In Stockholm, we sought out the heirs of Swedish diplomats in Bulgaria from the 30’s who own four paintings and in Berlin, we ran across a family which owns threepaintings. Our team discovered The Red Roofs of the Rila Monastery presented by Todor Zhivkov to the Austrian chancellor in 1968 in storage of the Belvedere Museum in Vienna. Unexpectedly, we traced a painting sold at the Venice Biennale in 1942 which mysteriously made its way back to the Bulgarian National Gallery and no one documented its return.
The most impressive story is that of the copy of the miraculous icon of St. George from the Zograf Monastery, made by my grandfather. Tsanko Lavrenov spent 100 days at Sveta Gora in 1935-1936 when our diplomatic relations with Greece were pretty tense and it was very difficult to travel. But he managed to go and paint his wonderful Svetogorski collection, where he did the copy of the St. George’s icon. He faced great resistance from the monks who used all sorts of tricks to make him give up. They refused to take the icon glass off and told my grandfather many scary legends for mysterious death reaching anyone who tried to repaint that icon. When Tsanko Lavrenov finished the icon, the monks exclaimed, “Your hands are made of gold, maestro!” They even offered that he stay at the monastery and draw icons for them. It was a very emotional moment when we discovered the icon in the St. Tsar Boris the Christener church in Plovdiv, exactly where my grandfather hung it 80 years ago.
In addition to paintings, Tsanko Lavrenov drew graphics, illustrated children’s magazines and was a set designer. In 1968, he made the décor of the Firewalker ballet at the Sofia Opera, starring the great Bulgarian ballerina Vera Kirova.
The work on the book was very challenging as we collected and processed a great pool of information. His whole life is gathered and displayed there – colorful and versatile as his works.
Lavren Petrov, grandson of Tsanko Lavrenov, manager of the Tsanko Lavrenov Foundation.
