Art rarely stays confined within the strict boundaries of museum halls. With this vision in mind, Kazanlak Municipality, at the invitation and initiative of Chief Secretary Mrs Ginka Shtereva, continues its ongoing effort to turn the foyer of the municipal administration building into a living territory for art. Following the project’s first instalment, dedicated to the sculptor Doko Dokov, this second exhibition turns its attention to one of the most significant figures in Bulgarian art history – academician Dechko Uzunov.
The present exhibition is drawn from works held in the private collection of Iliyan Donchev. As such, it can also be read as a study of private collecting and its role in preserving memory, because collecting is not simply the accumulation of artefacts; it is a particular form of searching, and the building of a personal museum of meaning. In the case of Iliyan Donchev’s collection—a patron whose contribution to Kazanlak’s cultural life has its roots in decades past—the gesture of collecting becomes a bridge between private ownership and public sharing.
The exhibition also carries a clear commemorative significance. It marks the founding of the Kazanlak Rotary Club, established on 26 April 1996 by Iliyan Donchev himself, who went on to become its charter president in 1999. This connection feels far from coincidental, but organically sought – Dechko Uzunov’s own life offers one of the earliest and most striking examples of the union between artistic mastery and the Rotarian ideal of service for the public good.
Dechko Uzunov’s admission to the Sofia Rotary Club in December 1936 marked a significant moment in his life. In his inaugural address, he set out his belief that art and Rotarianism shared a common mission:
‘This is precisely where I see my place within Rotarianism, whose aim is to work towards the cultural, spiritual and material advancement of people, towards high ethical standards, towards understanding among all nations… I want to work within the club so as to use the opportunities open to artistic creators to show Bulgaria to the world.’ For Uzunov, the universal language of the brush and of sculptural form was a means of building society.
His membership, captured in Alexander Dobrinov’s well-known group portrait, found expression in a series of talks, architectural discussions and joint projects with fellow club members – including the design of the Plovdiv Fair pavilion in 1938, commissioned by the industrialist engineer Gencho Staynov.
This episode of the artist’s life remained overlooked for a long time. As media expert Georgi Lozanov noted in 2006, on the occasion of an earlier exhibition dedicated to the artist and his ties to the Rotary Club: ‘Here is yet another role of Dechko Uzunov’s that socialism tried to erase from his biography – the Rotary Club… From what he says about Rotarianism, we understand what he thought about art, because for him the two evidently shared one and the same mission.’ In the years after 1944, his involvement in the organised Rotarian movement became a convenient pretext for interrogation and surveillance by the State Security services, while official criticism preferred to pass over it in silence.
Today, the return of these works from a private collection to the public space of Kazanlak, the town tied to Dechko Uzunov’s roots and formation, stands as proof that the art preserved in the Valley of the Thracian Kings continues to function as an active interlocutor. The works from Iliyan Donchev’s collection on display allow visitors to encounter the sculptural lightness and artistic breadth with which Dechko Uzunov moved through the decades – and which still moves us today.
