City (Finnish Station)

Artist and art critic, organizer and participant in various art events, the first director of the Bulgarian National Radio, Sirak Skitnik was a major figure in Bulgarian cultural life in the interwar years. Sirak Skitnik graduated in Sofia seminary in 1903. Between 1908 and 1912 he studied in Saint Petersburg at Elena Zvantzeva’s private school with L. Baxt, M. Dobouzhinski and K. Petrov-Vodkin. There, influenced by the ideas of the Russian Art Nouveau, of the “Mir iskustva” Association, he painted interiors and landscapes representing intimate, poetic motifs, where delicate bluish-grey and silver-white hues predominated.
In the 1920’s, Sirak Skitnik was one of the ideologists and inspirers of the Native Art Movement. His works of this period are characterized by stylized forms, linearity, and the pronounced decorativeness of colors. What specifies his work is the variety of “decorative” structures, which he offered in the use of various motifs and themes.