Ivan Ninov

Ivan Ninov (b. 19 August 1946) is a Bulgarian printmaker and draughtsman whose graphic practice spans etching, drypoint, lithography, and screen print, with a sustained career across the post-war Bulgarian print scene and consistent participation in Japanese-Bulgarian exchange exhibitions. He graduated from the Art School in Sofia in 1966 and has been an active exhibitor since 1969, with his first solo exhibition in 1972-73. He is one of four senior Bulgarian printmakers (alongside Skorchev, Maystorov, and Bozhkov) included in the 2003 'Contemporary Bulgarian Art Prints in Japan' touring exhibition at Kyoto Municipal Museum of Art and Tokushima Modern Art Museum.

Ninov's Japanese tie is documented through multiple channels. His prints have been included in international biennial exhibitions at Kanagawa, Japan, alongside the major Lessedra-organized Japan touring shows. He has held solo exhibitions abroad in Prague (1981, 1996), Bratislava (1981, 1997), Munich (1991), and Vienna (Haus Wittgenstein, 1997). The 2003 Japan touring exhibition presented two of his lithographs: 'Nature' (2001, 59 × 51 cm) and 'Steps II' (1995, lithograph and screen print, 53.5 × 52 cm). The combined lithograph-and-screen-print technique seen in 'Steps II' is characteristic of his mature graphic vocabulary, which combines hard-edge geometric structure with layered tonal printing.

His prints are held in the National Art Gallery of Bulgaria, the Sofia City Art Gallery, regional galleries in Burgas, Varna, Vratsa, Pleven, and Plovdiv, the Library of Congress in Washington D.C., the Ludwig collection in Cologne, and galleries in Krakow and Kanagawa, Japan. Among his major awards is a Gold medal from the International Print Exhibition in Stockholm (1997). His work has circulated through international biennials and representative exhibitions of Bulgarian art in Belgrade, Budapest, Ibiza, Krakow, Lodz, Ljubljana, and Tokyo.

Ninov's graphic style is geometric-abstract with a sustained interest in repetition, structure, and architectural form. The 'Steps' series, of which 'Steps II' was selected for the 2003 Japan exhibition, exemplifies this register: ascending architectural-geometric forms rendered in flat tonal blocks across the print surface, with the lithograph-and-screen-print combination producing a layered chromatic effect that distinguishes his mature work from the more figurative output of his Skorchev/Maystorov contemporaries. The 'Nature' (2001) lithograph extends the same vocabulary into landscape — abstract topographic forms organized as repeating-pattern tonal blocks.

He is represented internationally through A-Cube Contemporary, NOE Art Gallery, Artsper, and Artavita, and his work is collected by both Bulgarian institutional and international private collectors. His participation in the international print biennial circuit — Stockholm, Tokyo, Ljubljana, Belgrade, Budapest — over a four-decade period places him among the most-circulated Bulgarian printmakers internationally. The Library of Congress and Ludwig Cologne holdings document the early-1990s Western institutional acquisition wave for Bulgarian post-1989 graphic art.