Provenance: Purchased directly from the artist by the present owner, since then private collection Switzerland.

Exhibition: Zurich 1998, Nedko Solakov. Zeichnungen, Bilder, Fotos und Installationen. arsFutura Galerie, 20 November - 24 December 1998.


The Bulgarian Nedko Solakov is one of the great storytellers of contemporary art. Humorous, often caustic, critical and always profound, he questions today's society in his drawings, paintings and installations.

In the two drawings presented here, he addresses the story of St. Pipo, an imaginary figure who steals gifts instead of giving them away like Santa Claus. Through the use of text in the drawings, which is typical of his work, he presents his story almost as in a comic book and questions today’s often purely commercial ideas about Christmas.

Born in 1957 in Igumen Brjag/Bulgaria, Solakov studied at the Art Academy in Sofa and completed his studies in mural painting in 1981. His studies at the Hoger Instituut voor bearts in Antwerp in the mid-1980s were followed by scholarships in Zurich, Vienna and Berlin. Nedko Solakov took part in the Venice Biennale on various occasions. In 1999 he exhibited in the Bulgarian pavillon and took part in the Istanbul Biennale and the Documenta in Kassel.