Art hall of Tenyo Zhelev

Overview

Tenyo Zhelev is one of the most colorful Bulgarian artists. Apart from being a landscape painter, the lovers of fine art and his numerous admirers also know him as a master of portraiture. Among the brightest examples is the portrait of Vladimir Dimitrov - the Master, from whom the artist draws experience and wisdom in his youth, and later connects them with a cordial friendship.
The portraits of Tenyo Zhelev of historical figures - Levski, Botev, Zahari Stoyanov, Vaptsarov and many others, which he painted with respect for the person and their life path, are also remarkable. However, the portrait of Tsar Boris, with which the young artist won first prize in a competition at the Academy of Arts in 1942, later led to a dramatic turn in his life - he was sent for more than a year to the Belene camp as a "conductor of Western influence ", which marks both his and his family's life. His paintings are owned by many large galleries around the world, including Cosmopolitan in New York, by private collectors and connoisseurs such as Philippe Guggenheim, Renata de Bourbon / New Mexico /, Willy Klaas. The artist has participated in exhibitions in Japan, India, Russia, France, Germany, the Netherlands, USA, Canada and other countries. He lives and works in Cuba and France in several periods of his life, where he expands the themes of his paintings, enriches his palette and creates thematic collections that amaze with their color, expressiveness and striving for aesthetic representation of the world around us. Tenyo Zhelev is known also as "the doyen of Bulgarian culture and art, a representative of his golden age in Bulgaria and organizer of the first demonstration organized cultural events in Bulgaria." In 2017, more than 80 paintings by the artist disappeared from the family house, about which there is no information to this day. Over the years, they have been forced to look in their own way and with their own means for the canvases, which should be of national importance and in the focus of the institutions that preserve the cultural heritage of the country.