Sofia, November 10 (BTA) - An exhibition features Lyuben Zidarov's illustrations of Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tales over 60 years. The exhibition entitled "Sixty Years of Andersen's Fairy Tales" will be on at Sofia's Rakursi Art Gallery between November 16 and December 7.
Zidarov has illustrated hundreds of literary works, but Andersen's fairy tales have been a lifelong work of love, the Rakursi Gallery said. He worked on six editions of six versions of the fairy tales over 60 years.
The illustrator says readers young and old are fascinated with the tales' poetic quality, philosophical depth and wisdom, and discover insights that leave an indelible mark on the heart.
The first two-volume edition of the fairy tales with 20 black-and-white and 16 colour illustrations was printed in 1964-1965 by the Narodna Mladezh Publishers. Their success and international awards led to two more editions in the 1960s and 1970s, each of which took the illustrative style and treatment a step further.
The illustrations of the second period, done in the late 1980s and early 1990s without being commissioned by a publisher, saw the light of day only in 2006 when they were brought out by the Zahari Stoyanov Publishing House to mark Andersen's bicentenary. Interest in those illustrations led to an invitation from the Everafter Books Publishing House of Beijing in 2015 for a special edition with a new selection intended for the Chinese reading audience.
Late last year, the Zahari Stoyanov Publishing House brought out Andersen fairy tales with Zidarov's illustrations of the third period.
Zidarov graduated in Painting from the National Academy of Arts in 1948. He started his career in illustration and stayed true to it. He has illustrated hundreds of books, including several editions of world classics for young readers such as "Andersen's Fairy tales", "Scheherazade Tales of the Arabian Nights", "Treasure Island", " The Count of Monte Cristo", "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer", "The Prince and the Pauper", "Uncle Tom's Cabin", "The Tales of Hoffmann", Oscar Wilde's fairy tales, the adventure novels of Karl May, Mayne Reid and Jules Verne, as well as Bulgarian writers Nikolay Raynov, Angel Karaliychev and Asen Raztsvetnikov.
Zidarov is one of the pioneers of comic books in Bulgaria and of the modern movement in Bulgarian illustration. LN/DD