There was much to love about Plovdiv, but this…It was so unexpected. First that there should be within this gallery named for the collection of Tsanko Lavrenov a floor of lithographs from the 1970s and reproduction artifacts from Mexico. Second, not so surprising really, was just how amazing this collection really was. Four rooms, all superb. I don’t usually take pictures of these things, but these…it felt like a treasure almost entirely forgotten, not all of the names of the artists were even known. No postcards of course. Never will we see them again. But the reflections from the glass break my heart.

This is only a fraction, and those I loved most. I found something on all of the artists apart from Irma Dominguez, who is behind these most spectacular cats.

Silvia Rodriguez Rubio, whose work I cannot find but who I think is teaching at UNAM.

Emiliano Ortiz (1936-1988)

I love these so much… Ortiz is one of the few artists here I could find information for. After his suicide this article by Raquel Tibol appears, and in it she quotes Ortiz from 1972: ‘Lo poco de educación plástica que tuve fue de orden gráfico, principalmente en el taller de Silva Santamaría‘. Whose work was also to be found here (though he is originally from Columbia). I loved it also, each character…ah, I love them. Particularly the plant creature in the bottom left, but all of these spiky, dangerous absurd medieval knights are pretty awesome.

Guillermo Silva Santamaria (1921-2007)

Pedro Friedeberg (1936-), who is now from what the internet says, really quite a big deal.

Leonel Maciel Sanchez (1939-). Increible.

Tsanko Lavrenov was also a surprise look at this brilliant painting titled ‘Twenty Years Socialist Construction’.

I liked the rest of his work as well, but anything of ‘ideological weight’ was in storage…as if ideology were only to be found in paintings like the one above. Still, these scenes from the old town of Plovdiv are splendid.