BELGIAN WHO LOVED BULGARIAN ART

Four bronze figures look towards the sky as a plane flies over Sofia's City Garden. One holds his left hand above his eyes; another keeps her right hand around her ears. Aeroplanes 1943 is a strange, yet distinctive sculpture by Bulgarian artist Nikolay 'Shmirgela' Vladov (1911-1999). About 2,000 kilometres north of Sofia, in Belgium, an identical copy of this sculpture stands in the serene garden of a museum.

Collection Hugo Voeten is named after its founder: Belgian entrepreneur and art collector Hugo Voeten (1940-2017). The collection consists of 2,000 works of art. About one-third of them are from Bulgaria, counting over 80 Bulgarian artists. It is the largest collection of Bulgarian art outside the country.

Aeroplanes 1943 by Nikolay 'Shmirgela' Vladov, Sculpture Garden, Art Center Hugo Voeten 

Self-made man Hugo Voeten was an avid hunter. In the early 1990s, post-Communist Bulgaria was an alluring destination for hunting tourism to affluent Westerners. When Voeten was not after bears or wolves, he visited the ateliers of local artists, who were now struggling to survive without the commissions and jobs that Communist Bulgaria used to provide. After years of collecting Modernist art, Voeten now enjoyed interacting with living artists. Soon, he became their greatest admirer and collector. "I saw a lot of poverty, but I never took advantage. I never bargained. I was touched by all that misery," he said in one of his last interviews. Eveline Heylen, director of Collection Hugo Voeten, explains that the collector was an active art patron: he was involved in the process of creation. He not only bought existing pieces, but commissioned new work or larger versions of existing pieces. This is why his collection has three versions of Nikola Terziev's Grief: the 60-centimetre-tall original, a larger bronze version and its plaster cast.

Portrait of Hugo Voeten by Svetlin Rusev

In 2006, Hugo Voeten bought a former grain mixing factory along the canal in Herentals. He was keen on opening his collection to the public in the Campine region. It was in this industrious and affluent region where he had developed a successful chain of supermarkets. "I owe everything to my customers," he used to explain in interviews. "That is why I wanted to do something in return."

The Art Centre opened on 18 April 2012 after six year of converting the decaying building into an art space that spans 4,500 sq m and hosts 700 works of art. Painter Svetlin Rusev (1933-2018), a prominent and controversial figure in Bulgarian art in the 1970s-2010s, curated the exhibition.

A visit to the centre reveals a collection which is utmost eclectic. According to art historian Eveline Heylen, Hugo Voeten collected art intuitively. He never studied art nor did he rely on experts or financial advisors – he did not collect to speculate or invest. Amazingly, he did not want the artist's reputation to affect the viewer's opinion of a work of art – this is why the pieces on display have no titles and author.

Yoan Kukuzel by Ivan Kolev, Sculpture Garden, Art Center Hugo Voeten 

The art centre in Herentals houses paintings, drawings, sculptures, casts and installations. A garden in neighbouring Geel exhibits 150 sculptures.

Strolling through the 15 hectares-large garden can be a breathtaking experience, especially if you visit on a sunny day.

The sculpture garden breathes serenity. It has four distinct sections: a historical garden, a geometrical garden, a modern garden and a scrub zone. About 80 percent of the sculptures are from Bulgarian artists and the paths are paved with marble from Ilindentsi, a village in Bulgaria's southwest famed for its marble.

All sculptures interact with one another and their surroundings. For example, truncated trees around the sculpture of a horse accentuate the animal's vitality. Some sculptures were even conceived with their future location in the garden in mind.

While the historical garden plays with shadow and light, the geometrical garden uses tall hedges to mark discrete rooms. Many of them contain works of a single artist. An entire lane is dedicated to Pavel Koychev, Voeten's favourite among the Bulgarian artists.

Saturnalia by Krum Damyanov

The vast garden, with its open fields and irregularly shaped ponds, offers spectacular views. Particularly impressive is Ivan Kolev's sculpture of a preaching Yoan Kukuzel, the medieval singer and composer of supposedly Bulgarian origin. Against a background of mature trees and amid thick bushes, two young trees around the sculpture make the saint look highly energetic.

Hugo Voeten promoted Bulgarian art intensively, both in Bulgaria and abroad. In Sofia, he organised an exhibition and helped the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to create a sculpture park – it features a bust of Hugo Voeten by Tsvetoslav Hristov. Abroad, he sponsored the 2002 Europalia Bulgaria event in Brussels and Bulgaria's participation at the 2007 Venice Festival. When the National Gallery of Bulgaria was in financial dire straits, Hugo Voeten bought a series of works by Christo. He also co-funded the major renovation of the gallery's third floor. He believed that it was important not only to help artists, but also to establish and maintain art institutions. The Belgian collector became an honorary citizen of Sofia and an honorary consul of the Republic of Bulgaria in Belgium.

Seven in One by Stefan Lubakov

Upon the opening of his Art Centre, the founder wished: "I don't want this museum to become a mausoleum. I want a centre which lives, with events and concerts." Today, his three children are managing his legacy. They appointed Eveline Heylen to manage the collection, the patrimony and the real estate. A dynamic team provides guided tours and organises activities. The collection remains as it is – the foundation does not acquire new works, but temporary curators select the pieces that will be exhibited in the Art Centre. The foundation collaborates with other collections and institutions and hosts temporary exhibitions of contemporary art. The sculptures in the sculpture garden do not change, yet the 3.5 kilometre-long itinerary does. The organisation keeps visits limited to small groups to ensure the quality of the experience and the serenity of the premises.

Airplanes 1943 by Nikolay 'Shmirgela' Vladov in Sofia's City Garden

An intriguing group of figures stands in the garden of the Art Centre: six women in intense sorrow and pain. September 1923 (Mothers) by Lyubomir Dalchev (1902-2002) is a masterpiece. Two copies of the sculpture stand in Sofia: in South Park, at the Exposition for National Reconciliation, and in the patio of the National Gallery.

In Herentals, renowned landscape designer Jacques Wirtz respected the original surroundings of the former grain mixing factory. Another sculpture stands amid the grid of slim, straight poplar trees and high weeds through which sways a mowed band: Aeroplanes 1943. Though far away from their homeland, these sculptures, just as many other pieces of Collection Hugo Voeten, could not wish for a better home.