The Bencho Obreshkov Art Gallery in Karnobat has opened an exhibition of 100 works by artist Atanas Zhekov to mark 100 years since his birth. It brings together paintings and graphic works from different periods of his career and runs until November 24.

At the opening on September 23, visitors looked round the paintings and heard stories about the artist as a person. They also learned how strong his ties to his home town stayed throughout his life.

Atanas Zhekov was born in Karnobat in 1926. He studied painting at the Art Academy in Sofia and went on to become one of the leading names in Bulgarian fine art. Over his career he took part in dozens of group exhibitions and held more than 25 solo shows in Bulgaria and abroad — in Sofia, Karnobat, Szczecin, Leningrad and Bratislava. He served as director of the Sofia City Art Gallery and taught at the Art Academy. His work is held in national and regional art collections. His career took him far from his home town, but Karnobat stayed part of his life to the end.

The most moving moment of the evening came when his son, Konstantin Zhekov, thanked the people of Karnobat for keeping his father's memory alive. "Wherever he was, he always spoke of Karnobat with love. He was a man of Karnobat," he told the audience.

Rumyana Deneva recalled the artist's last exhibition in the town, in 2006, and spoke of how much he did for the local art collection. Today the gallery holds more than 100 of his works, and his family keeps donating new paintings.

Zhekov's bond with the gallery went beyond the paintings he left to Karnobat. He personally helped build its collection — working with Stefan Karavasilev to track down and gather works by artists that would stay in the future collection. In 1989, when there was talk of naming the gallery after him, Zhekov turned the idea down and insisted it be named after Bencho Obreshkov instead. That choice still shows, more clearly than anything, how he felt about his home town's art history.

Artist Radko Murzov spoke of another side of Zhekov — the teacher who encouraged young artists without pushing his own style on them. Murzov said that early in his career Zhekov helped him get into a youth exhibition and even lent him his own studio to work in on his own.

Memories from the artist's family, colleagues and students were rounded off with archive footage in which the audience heard Atanas Zhekov's own voice. A hundred years after his birth, Karnobat has once again opened its doors to his art — and to the people who still hold a personal memory of him.