Poster – Lyudmil Chehlarov – collection of Dobrich Gallery
15 October – 30 November 2026
Opening: 15 October, 6:00 PM
How long does a poster have to make us stop and look? Sometimes just a few seconds. In that brief moment, it must catch the eye, convey information, and at the same time create an image that continues to live on long after the event for which it was made.
The exhibition “Poster – Lyudmil Chehlarov” at Ruse Art Gallery presents a selection from the extensive collection of Dobrich Art Gallery, established through a major donation made by the artist to his hometown.
Lyudmil Chehlarov is one of the significant figures in the history of Bulgarian poster art. Born in Dobrich in 1938, he graduated in Poster Design from the National Academy of Art in 1966, where he studied under Prof. Alexander Poplilov. His professional career became closely connected with the theatre. After graduating, he began working as a poster designer for the State Satirical Theatre, and the theatre posters he created over the following decades gradually shaped his distinctive visual language.
In these works, the theatrical performance is rarely “retold” literally. Chehlarov takes a different approach, seeking a single image, sign, detail or visual joke capable of distilling the idea and atmosphere of a production. Figures are distorted, objects acquire new meanings, colour becomes an accent, and humour often moves between playfulness, irony and the grotesque.
It is precisely this ability to reduce complexity to a powerful and memorable image that makes Chehlarov’s posters so recognisable even today. Created for particular performances and events, over time they have acquired another significance as well – as works of art in their own right and as visual records of several decades of cultural life.
The collection from which the exhibition in Ruse has been selected has a remarkable history of its own. In 2021, Prof. Lyudmil Chehlarov donated to Dobrich Art Gallery 115 original poster designs and 233 printed posters from his personal archive. In this way, a substantial part of his artistic legacy found a permanent home in the city where he was born.
The exhibition in Ruse offers an encounter not only with the history of Bulgarian poster art, but also with a distinctive form of visual thinking – immediate, precise and inventive, capable of saying a great deal with remarkably few means.
