(b Plovdiv, 24 Nov 1896; d Sofia, 16 Dec 1978). Bulgarian painter and writer. He was born into an old and well-respected family and graduated from the French College in Plovdiv. Because of World War I, he was not able to enter the Academy of Art in Sofia and instead worked for his father in his shop. His visits to Vienna in 1921 and Italy in 1925 convinced him that he should become a self-taught painter. He was one of the most important artists in Bulgaria in the 20th century, achieving renown for his unique style of painting and for his decorative, brightly coloured scenes of legends and fairy tales. After a visit in 1942 to the monasteries in Mt Athos, which inspired such paintings as The Khilandar Monastery (1943) and The Zograph Monastery (1946), he began an extensive series of paintings, Bulgarian Monasteries. From the 1930s to the 1960s he was a member of the so-called ‘Plovdiv Artists’ group, whose art dealt with the spirit and the romantic traditions of that ancient city. Therefore, many of his paintings, such as Old Plovdiv (1930; Sofia, N.A.G.) and Plovdiv’s Renaissance Men (1970; Plovdiv, Tzanko Lavrenov Mus.), evoke the 19th-century atmospheres of Plovdiv and such other old Bulgarian towns as Gabrovo and the former capital Turnovo. Lavrenov also painted subjects from Bulgarian history, as in his series of Visions from Ancient Bulgaria, which included such works as Tsar Simeon I Being Welcomed in Preslav (1941) and the Coronation of Ivailo in Turnovo (1973; Sofia, N.A.G.). After moving to Sofia, he became involved in theoretical research on Bulgarian graphic art and in 1958 published a book on a fellow artist from Plovdiv, Zlatyu Boyadjiev. In accordance with Lavrenov’s will, a Tzanko Lavrenov Museum was established in the house of his birth in Plovdiv, and the majority of his works are located there.

• Lavrenov, Tzanko
  • Plovdiv