Memorial Plaque to the Noted Bulgarian Sculptor Atanas Kachamakov and his Wife Alexandra in the USA
On 12/19/2022, the Consulate General of the Republic of Bulgaria in Los Angeles placed a memorial plaque to the noted and talented sculptor Atanas Kachamakov and his wife Alexandra at La Sierra University in Riverside. The Kachamakovs have donated half of their property to this university, which in turn provides a scholarship bearing their name to outstanding students.
Atanas Kachamakov (1898 – 1988) was a Bulgarian sculptor who fulfilled the American dream with a successful career in the USA. He was born in the picturesque town of Lyaskovets and studied sculpture at the Art Academy in Sofia. With his wife Alexandra, a ceramic artist, he left for Paris, and in 1924 - for New York. There, with his work "Indian Woman with Child" he participated in a prestigious exhibition and won first prize. After 1930 he worked as a sculptor for major film productions in Los Angeles. He established his studio in Palm Springs, where he lived for the rest of his life. He has his exhibitions in Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, San Francisco. At the beginning of the 1980s, he visited Bulgaria and presented a solo exhibition in the National Gallery, Sofia, and donated the works shown in it to his native Lyaskovets.
The novel "Dobri", which the Consulate General presents to every Bulgarian school in the consular district of the mission, is based on the life of Atanas Kachamakov and has his illustrations. It is by a Canadian author and has become a favorite read of American youth, reprinted several times in the US. Thanks to the NEF "13 Centuries Bulgaria" the novel has been translated and published in Bulgarian.
During the event, Consul General Boyko Hristov and the leadership of the Faculty of Arts and Design of La Sierra University agreed on the implementation of various joint initiatives such as exhibitions of Bulgarian artists in their gallery, respectively, American exhibitions in Bulgaria.
In 2021, with the assistance of the State Institute for Culture and the NEF "13 Centuries Bulgaria", the exhibition "The Bread" was presented in the representative spaces of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Bulgaria, with 30 drawings by Atanas Kachamakov from the cycle "Our Daily Bread", which are a natural continuation of the novel "Dobri".