Nikolay Maystorov

Nikolay Maystorov (b. 7 August 1943, Sofia) is a Bulgarian painter and graphic artist whose printmaking career spans a near sixty-year period of sustained international exchange. He graduated from the National Academy of Art ('N. Pavlovich') in Sofia in 1969, where he trained in fine art under Prof. Nenko Balkanski. He has held a full professorship at the New Bulgarian University, Sofia (Department of Fine Arts), for many years, and has maintained an active studio practice in painting and graphics throughout his career.

Maystorov's Japanese tie runs through the Lessedra-organized Bulgarian-Japanese print exchange. His prints were featured in the 2003 'Contemporary Bulgarian Art Prints in Japan' touring exhibition at Kyoto Municipal Museum of Art and Tokushima Modern Art Museum, and he has been a consistent participant in the Lessedra World Art Print Annual in Sofia, which is co-organized with the Japan Foundation and the Japanese Embassy in Bulgaria. The 2003 Japan exhibition presented his 'Apocalypse Now or For Ever' lithograph cycle — a 23-work series after the Apocalypse of St. John in The Bible. Two prints from the cycle are documented in the Japan-touring catalogue: a 76 × 56 cm lithograph after Chapter 4 of the Apocalypse (depicting The Lord) and a 56 × 76 cm lithograph after Chapter 16 (The Curse).

His aesthetic register is figurative-existential: he describes himself as interested in 'man as existence, mainly as a psychic existence, as a dualistic nature swinging between the two poles of good and evil.' The Apocalypse cycle, organized around the medieval iconographic register of judgment and revelation, is the canonical example of this register, with its dense compositional structure and dramatic figural staging executed across the lithographic plate. Other graphic series include large-scale charcoal drawings and mixed-media works in which the printed plate is sometimes overworked or annotated.

Maystorov has accumulated significant international recognition over his career. Major awards include the 1st prize for print at the International Biennale of Humour and Satire in Gabrovo (1987), the Vladimir Dimitrov Maistora prize for fine art (Union of Bulgarian Artists, Sofia, 1986), the National Award for Painting Zahari Zograff (2005), and inclusion in the Macmillan Encyclopedia of World Art (1995). His works are held in major collections including Peter Ludwig's collection of Bulgarian art in Cologne, Germany; the Graphical collection in Düsseldorf; the Museum of Modern Arts in Berlin; the Museum of Modern Arts in Seoul, South Korea; and the City Council collection of Dordrecht, Holland. The Ludwig and Düsseldorf graphic-collection holdings are particularly important — they document the systematic Western European institutional reception of Bulgarian post-1989 graphic practice.

He has held the position of Professor at the National Gallery of Bulgaria's faculty programme alongside his New Bulgarian University duties. The 'Prof. Nikolay Maystorov and Students' exhibition at the National Gallery of Bulgaria documented his role as a senior printmaking educator with a continuing pedagogical lineage — his graduate students continue to circulate through Bulgarian and international print biennials. He maintains a Saatchi Art profile through which his lithographs and paintings are circulated to international collectors.