Hristo Pesev was born on 7 June 1923 in the village of Shipka near Kazanlak. He received his earliest education in art from woodcarving teacher Tsanyo Antonov, and Dimitar Drumev, who taught art history, stylistics and drawing at the State Carpentry School in Tryavna (today the National High School of Applied Arts – ‘Trevnenska School’). Pesev graduated in 1938, but since the curriculum there was just 3 years in duration and thus not recognised as secondary education, under the guidance of Tsanyo Antonov he sat the entrance exam for the Secondary and Practical Art School of Furniture and Interior Decoration in Ruse. He graduated from that school in 1944, specialising in woodcarving, and was particularly influenced by teachers Georgi Karakashev (drawing and art history), Architect Manolov (stylistic studies) and Dryanovski (woodcarving). The teacher who made the greatest impression on Pesev was his second woodcarving teacher Stoyan Baev, who had returned from specialisation in Germany and ignited his passion for sculpture — Pesev made a clay model of Christ which he then rendered in Slovenian oak and placed in the German cemetery in Ruse. During that time, he also won a competition to design carved wooden ornamentations for a newly-built church in Ruse, executing the work himself.
In 1946, he was admitted to the State Academy of Art, first taking a two-year general course under Kiril Tsonev, and later taking sculpture in Professor Ivan Lazarov’s class, who was succeeded after his death by Professor Mikhail Katz. Ultimately he defended his thesis under Professor Ivan Funev with the work The Shipka Volunteers, purchased by the Museum of Military History in Sofia.
In 1955, he was assigned to teach plaster stucco at the Technical School of Arts and Crafts in Sofia (today the St. Luke’s National High School of Applied Arts), which was established in 1953 as a small artisan school on the outskirts of the city. Hristo Pesev embarked on a personal quest to turn it into a secondary school, which ended with his dismissal in 1958. In the same year he joined the Technical School of Ceramics and Glass in Sofia (today the Professional High School of Ceramics) as a teacher of sculpture, art history and stylistics, where, according to his memoirs, he recounts how ‘I can boldly say that I made serious inroads in my growth as an artist, a sculptor, where among the students, in unison with my teaching, I created my own unique works’. His first participations in joint exhibitions (1963, 1964, 1967) and his participation in the Biennial of Small Sculpture in Budapest (1973) date from this period. In 1963, he became a member of the Union of Artists.
Pesev held his first solo exhibition in the large hall on the ground floor of 6, Shipka St. in Sofia from 26 June to 16 July 1975. From 6 – 20 December 1983, he hung his second solo exhibition : ‘…a jubilee exhibition in honour of my 60th anniversary, which was on the ground floor of Shipka 6 with 135 works, of which over 2 metres was rendered in Vratsa stone, and a marble piece of a female nude’. Three works, including the female nude, were purchased by the Union of Bulgarian Artists on 21 December 1983 (receipt no. 6107), later forming part of the collection of Art Gallery Kazanlak. The exhibition was shown in Kazanlak in February 1984. Since at that time the town gallery was housed in an exhibition hall on Boulevard 23rd Shipchenski Polk, due to the size of the sculpture it was likely left in the exhibition hall until an opportune moment came for its relocation to the gallery. That moment arrived around 31 January 1985, when it was officially recognised as an acquisition to the collection, and according to the accounts of witnesses, was placed at the southwest edge of the building, the crane negotiating the approach to the depot having failed to handle its weight. In 2013, it was moved into its present position at the initiative of the gallery team, by the entrance of the building in a specially-prepared place. In 1984, Hristo Pesev donated the remainder of his exhibition pieces to Art Gallery Kazanlak.
In 1993, Hristo Pesev showed his final solo exhibition at Shipka 6, exhibiting 74 works of sculpture in metal, terracotta and wood, and 74 drawings and watercolours. The artist passed away on 10 March 2000. Over the years, he was recognised with various honours – second prize on III theme of Current themes from the period 1944 – 1976 at the General Art Exhibition for his piece Rest (1967); awarded the Order of Saints Cyril and Methodius, 2nd degree in 1973; awarded the Ivan Lazarov prize for sculpture for his first solo exhibition and the monument to Kalifer Voyvoda in Kalofer (1975). His works are owned by the National Art Gallery – Sofia, Sofia City Art Gallery, art galleries in Burgas, Varna, Razgrad, Stara Zagora, Sliven, Kazanlak and Shipka.
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Hristo Pesev
Nude, prior to 1983
Marble
135 × 110 × 115 сm