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 was among the senior Bulgarian printmakers — alongside Rumen Skorchev, Nikolai Maystorov, and Milko Bozhkov — singled out in the 2003 'Contemporary Bulgarian Art Prints in Japan' touring exhibition, a thirty-artist show presented at the Kyoto Municipal Museum of Art (September–October 2003) and the Tokushima Modern Art Museum (November 2003).

Ninov's Japanese connection is documented through several channels. His prints have been included in international biennial and representative exhibitions of Bulgarian art at Kanagawa and Tokyo in Japan, alongside the 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, and regional galleries in Burgas, Varna, Vratsa, Pleven, and Plovdiv, as well as the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., and the Ludwig collection in Cologne. Among his awards is a medal from the international graphic-arts 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, from 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. The 'Nature' (2001) lithograph extends the same vocabulary into landscape, organizing abstract topographic forms as repeating tonal blocks.

His work is shown through contemporary galleries and online art platforms and is collected by both Bulgarian institutional and international private collectors. His participation in the international print-biennial circuit — including Stockholm, Tokyo, Ljubljana, Belgrade, and Budapest — spans four decades and places him among the widely circulated Bulgarian printmakers of his generation.

Within the contemporary Bulgarian-Japanese print-exchange context, Ninov represents the geometric-abstract strand of his generation. His Kanagawa and Tokyo exhibitions, together with the Lessedra-organized Japan touring shows, remain the principal anchors of his Japanese reception, the latter providing a continuing exchange channel since the early 2000s.