Bulgarian-European Cultural Dialogue Centre

We are mobilizing our efforts, together with other Bulgarian and international art historians, as well as our fellow countrymen, living abroad, to work out a program for national celebration of the first Bulgarian academically-trained artist’s 200^th birthday. 

Dimitar Dobrovich was born in Sliven, Bulgaria.He studied in the Greek Orthodox College in Kuruçeşme in Istanbul and then in Athens. At first he was tutored by the French artist Pierre Bonirote and then became a student of Italian artist Raffaello Ceccoli. In Greece, Dimitar Dobrovich graduated the Technical School of Arts and went by the name of Demetrios Dobriadis.

Dimitar Dobrovich spent several decades in Rome, Italy, where he enrolled in the University of Fine Arts in 1848. In the same year he took part in Giuseppe Garibaldi’s uprising. Later on, Dimitar Dobrovich graduated from the academy and thus became the first Bulgarian academically-trained artist. He died in 1905, twelve years after he had returned to Bulgaria.

The project is realized in partnership with:

Ministry of Culture 

National Art Gallery in Sofia

Sliven Art Gallery

Studio-Collection Svetlin Russev

Uninhibited Contacts Foundation in Sofia

Institute for Mediterranean Studies in Crete, Greece

and in cooperation with the National Gallery in Athens.

NATIONAL GALLERY

STUDIO-COLLECTION SVETLIN RUSSEV