Landscape by Boris Kolev

Artwork Description

Throughout his long artistic career Boris Kolev worked mainly in the field of landscape, much less often in portraits and figurative compositions. Prof Kolev's work has his own eye. The eye of a sensitive and observant viewer discovers the master of heavenly expanses. In many of his landscapes half of the canvas is occupied by the sky - for him it is the most important element of the picture, creating the mood. In each landscape Boris Kolev paints the sky, which is not repeated neither in colour, nor in shape, nor in condition. Dramatic sunrises and sunsets, the sky before thunderstorms and rain create the awe that drives the artist to paint just such celestial spaces. He does not like and never paints a flat blue sky, but paints clouds of bizarre and strange shapes.

With his works in the genre of landscape Boris Kolev contributed to its development. Already in the 1930s Boris Kolev created works which, despite the influence of Neo-Impressionism, have the character of art, strong in its emotional expressiveness. In the 1940s and 1950s his preference for landscape was not accidental. It revealed the artist's lyrical inclination and defined a genre freed from complex figurative images, which was very close to his perception and was a real refuge for an artist like him.

The artist never parted with the landscape, convinced that it harbours untapped artistic possibilities. In this respect, he is one of the few artists who have remained in this genre, unlike those who turn to figurative composition and abstract works.

Everything created by Boris Kolev stands in its place, and its value grows over the years, because the true, valuable things remain despite the vicissitudes of time.

In 2006, this piece was acquired from a private collector with the intention of donating it as an addition to the very significant collection of a well-known public figure in Sofia, Bulgaria, where it is currently located.