Peter Lazarov

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Peter Lazarov, Bulgarian/Dutch artist printmaker, has been living in The Netherlands since 1990. Almost completely unknown in his home country, Peter Lazarov is one of the very few living artists within the official collection of the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, where, amongst others one finds the Night watch by Rembrandt.

Other prestigious collections include Museum Meermanno-Westreenianum, The Hague, Netherlands; Museum of fine arts, Okinawa, Japan; National Library of Congress, Washington DC, USA; Yale University, USA; and the University of British Columbia, Vancouver Canada.

Peter Lazarov, member of the British Society of Wood engravers, is a master of printing techniques, using wood engraving, woodcuts, and lithography, sometimes combined into one print. His expressive style bares the marks of the rich Bulgarian tradition and simultaneously the Influences of Dürer, Rembrandt, Escher, or Willem De Kooninck.

In 2003, he visited Japan to work with the master paper maker Sensei Fujimori-san, considered a "National treasure" in Japan. Today Peter Lazarov makes his own papers, using the ancient Japanese techniques. One may consider Lazarov to be the only Bulgarian artist who possesses this knowledge.

He has illustrated numerous bibliographical fine press books for such authors as Louis Paul Boon, Atanas Daltchev, Cor Jellema, Kavafis, Emily Dickinson, Charlotte Bronte, Victor Hugo, Archimedes, or Crispin Elsted amongst others.

In 2002, he founded his own private press, PEPELpress, for limited editions handmade books.In 2006 two of his books, notably “Shoji” and "Melancholi..." were chosen amongst the 50 best bibliographical editions in The Netherlands for 2004-2005, Mooi Marginaal. In 2007, a large exhibition of Peter Lazarov in Shanghai, China, showing 200 engravings was "sold out"—an unseen event for the author.

In October 2008, Peter Lazarov will be the centre of the world graphics exhibition in Beijing, China, where he was recently elected by the Organizational committee of the World Congress of FISAE in Beijing, China, as amongst the 10 best artists printmakers in the world, working in the field of Ex Libris and small graphic art. It is the first time such an honour is bestowed upon a Bulgarian artist.