The Generations Programme presents disciples of Dechko Uzunov. They went on to become renowned artists, some of whom are no longer with us. Their story is now related by art historians, through the artists’ own works, archive materials and shared memories.

Painter Dora Kancheva (1926–2013) is among the most prominent disciples of the great artist. Art historian Prof. Marin Dobrev shares a memory of Dora Kancheva that speaks volumes of her as a person and an artist: To her, every day spent in front of the easel with a brush in her hand, was a holiday. Her painting provokes with its vibrant colourfulness and expressiveness, with the pleasure in creation it exudes, with its youthful honesty and the wisdom of its messages. Her all-encompassing passion for painting set her on the roads to nature, art and life. (…) She kept painting until she was able to hold a brush in her hand. She entitled one of her last paintings ‘The Legend of Living Water’. This title is an idiosyncratic metaphor for her true presence in art.

Having completed her studies in the early 1950’s, Dora Kancheva left the Academy of Art, Sofia, enriched by the lessons she learned from Dechko Uzunov. These lessons did not only help her evolve as an artist, but also encouraged her to walk along the road of life with confidence. She would paint tirelessly for more than fifty years, finding inspiration in the architecture and streets of big cities and small towns, as well as in villages nestling at the foot of the Balkan mountain. Her paintings often represent old churches, monasteries, fishermen’s shacks, the sea with its boats, either sailing or anchored, trees blooming in the spring, etc. Works of hers can be found in almost all government-owned galleries throughout the country, as well as in numerous private collections all over the world.

The exhibition Dora Kancheva. The Roads I Took features landscapes that showcase the artist’s work and reveal her tireless search of new themes. The place being represented is the focus of her canvases. Ports, marketplaces (Landscape – Sozopol, Varna – The Marketplace), this and that spot in Sofia, Melnik, Kazanlak, Gotse Delchev or the village of Shishkovtsi let us see just a small part of the places visited by Dora Kancheva, while the ever simmering mix of colours and shapes on the paintings’ surface let us feel the artist’s emotions.

The exhibition Dora Kancheva. The Roads I Took is a joint project of the Dechko Uzunov Ary Gallery, and annex of the Sofia City Art Gallery, and the Stara Zagora City Art Gallery, supported by the Kazanlak City Art Gallery and the Museum of Regional History, Sofia.