National Academy of Art is the most prestigious Bulgarian institution for training professional artists in the field of fine and applied arts, design, conservation and restoration and history and theory of art (in BA, MA and DA degrees). The academic research units in the two departments are relevant departments that are responsible for the development and implementation of educational programmes
for acquiring higher education from the professional trend “Fine Art” for “Bachelor” degree and “Master” degree and an educational and scientific degree “Doctor.” In all specialties except the main artistic disciplines that form the professional training of students there are included painting, art history, aesthetics, philosophy, plastic anatomy, perspective, etc. All students have the right to be educated together with a chosen by them specialty in a second specialty “Theory and Practice of Art Education”. This allows them to receive professional training for practicing as art teachers in the secondary general educational and specialized art schools. Members of the department “Drawing”, “History of Art” and “Psychology of Art, Art Education and General Education Subjects” carry out the education in these disciplines. The period for completion of the “Bachelor” degree in the NAA is a period of four academic years, “Master” degree includes 1, 1,5 or 2 academic years. The subject “Restoration” offers only a Master programme taking five years of training. The educational and scientific degree “Doctor” takes three years after completion of “Master” degree. Today the NAA educates nearly 1000 local and foreign students and PhD. Where an institution weighs in place more than a century, it inevitably acquires that wise autonomy which always survives the current vicissitudes of fate. The red building of the National Academy of Art, located opposite the National Library and the University of Sofia is a symbol of the birth and promotion of art education in Bulgaria. The Academy was founded in 1896 as a State School of Drawing by individuals whose work has been part of our European pride – Professors Konstantin Velichkov, Ivan Shishmanov, Anton Mitov, Ivan Mrkvicka, Boris Schatz, Ivan Angelov and many others. Today, the Academy continues to be honored with the high responsibility of a leader in the field of art education. The latest official survey ratings reaffirmed that NAA is a leading institution in its professional field. Not only from tradition it derives its authority, but from the hardly contestable fact that today’s most experienced and creative Bulgarian artists and art historians teach the students of the Academy. The Academy is more than an educational institution – it is a generator of creative projects and is facing not only to its students but to audiences with different social stratification. And where tradition meet and present, innovative results are to be found. Typical example of the latter statement may even be just two of the events held during the year at the Academia gallery. Significantly, NAA is the organizer and host of the International Student Biennial of Drawing and next year it is the home of electronic art forms through the same internationalist digital arts festival DA Fest. Obviously, the range of the possibilities of majors offered by the Academy evolved from classical painting to the latest computer technology. Accreditation process conducted by NEAA in June 2013 gave the highest score of the Academy on its proposed educational and intellectual products. Behind this finding, however, lie dozens of events whose record is actually the main objective of this yearbook. These are the teaching activities, exhibitions of bachelors and masters, own and visiting exhibitions in the Academia gallery, the impressive number of foreign lecturers, summer academies and practices, exhibitions abroad, joint projects with partner institutions around the world. We can add the activities of the museum of the Academy, the publishing, the general academic journal Art and Criticism ... And let us not forget that the vast majority of this edition is dedicated to the creative activity of each of the departments and their specialties. The flow of events in the NAA is rapidly increasing – year in, year out. In such a situation it is inevitable to be optimistic. The State Drawing School was opened on 1 October 1896 by Decree signed by Prince Ferdinand. This Act made legitimate the oldest institution for higher education in Bulgaria. The archive documents for the setting up of the present Academy reveal the names of outstanding public figures, artists Anton Mitov, Ivan Markvichka and Boris Shats and men of letters Konstantin Velichkov and Ivan Shishmanov. In 1911 the teaching staff submitted a plan for development to the Ministry of Education in which they also put forward their request the School to be renamed to Academy of Art. Ten years later in 1921 following a proposal by Stoyan Omarchevski, Minister of Education, the State Drawing School was renamed to Academy of Art.
