Ivan Milev Lalev, “Krali Marko”, 1926
Ivan Milev Lalev was a Bulgarian painter and scenographer regarded as the founder of the Bulgarian Secession and a representative of Bulgarian modernism, combining symbolism, Art Nouveau and expressionism in his work. In 1920 at the age of twenty three, he was admitted to the National Academy of Arts in Sofia, where he studied under Prof. Stefan Badzhov, and had three one-man exhibitions. He also contributed to the communist comic magazine Red Laughter as an illustrator and cartoonist.
Milev died of influenza in Sofia on 25 January 1927, shortly before his thirtieth birthday. Regarded as one of the great masters of distemper and watercolour painting in Bulgarian art, Milev’s characteristic decorative style was much influenced by the European Secession, but it was also related to Bulgarian folk art and icon painting. Milev’s paintings are exhibited in the National Art Gallery and the Sofia Gallery.