Description of the attraction
The Art Museum of Fine Arts, called the "National Gallery of Foreign Art" and located in the city of Sofia, is a real gem for any art connoisseur.
The opening of the gallery took place in 1985 largely thanks to the Lyudmila Zhivkova Foundation. Most of the museum's work was donated from the National Gallery of Art, as well as donations from private collections. At the moment, the expositions of the complex are located in nineteen halls of a four-story building, which previously housed a state printing house.
The museum fund has more than 10 thousand works by authors in various fields of art: painting, sculpture, graphics, arts and crafts. The gallery is famous both for the works of artists of Bulgarian origin and representatives of other countries: Goyen, Renoir, Ostade, Durer, Rembrandt, Chagall, Goya, Picasso, Dali, Miro, Rodin, Korovin, Nicholas and Svyatoslav Roerichs and many others. In addition to samples of European art, the gallery also contains art from Africa, Japan, Southeast Asia, and India. The National Gallery also boasts a rich collection of 20th century French paintings. The number of exhibits continues to grow steadily.
The museum complex itself deserves special attention. The building in which the gallery is located was built at the end of the nineteenth century according to the sketches of the famous Viennese architect Friedrich Schwanberger. Unfortunately, during the years of World War II, the building was badly damaged by the bombing and in its original form has not survived to this day, but it still amazes with its grandeur and monumentality. Bulgarian architect Nikola Nikolov put a lot of effort into its reconstruction.
The Foreign Art Gallery in Sofia is a source of pride for all of Bulgaria, because connoisseurs from all over the world come here every year to see the collection assembled by the museum.
