Bencho Obreshkov

He was born on April 27, 1899 in Karnobat. Between 1918 and 1920 he studied at the Art Industrial School, where his teachers were Petko Klisurov and Ivan Angelov. In 1926 he graduated in painting from the Dresden Academy of Arts in the class of Professor Oskar Kokoschka and Otto Dix. He specialized in sculpture under the famous Antoine Bourdelle and participated in exhibitions in Paris in 1925 - 1927. He returned to Bulgaria in 1927.

Bencho Obreshkov works in the field of portraiture, landscape and still life, paints scenes from the life of fishermen and sailors. Characteristic of his portraits is the masterful rendering of the physiognomic and psychological characteristics of the models. His landscapes are almost always populated with human figures. His preferred technique is oil paints.

Obreshkov organized his first solo exhibition in Karnobat in 1919, for charitable purposes. He held over ten solo exhibitions: in Sofia, Dresden, Athens, Bucharest and one joint with Zlatyu Boyadzhiev and Georgi Baev in 1962 in Sofia. He participated in collective exhibitions in Belgrade, Paris, Munich, Moscow. Obreshkov's paintings are owned by the National Art Gallery, the Sofia Art Gallery, the art gallery in Burgas and other cities, galleries in Stockholm, Plaga, Vienna, Dresden, Bucharest, Athens and private collections. During the bombing of Sofia in 1944, more than 250 of his paintings were destroyed.

Bencho Obreshkov is a member of the "Native Art" society and the Society of New Artists. Between 1969 and 1970 he was chairman of the Creative Fund of the Union of Bulgarian Artists.

He died on April 8, 1970 in Sofia.