Marin Vasilev

Together with Boris Schatz and Zheko Spiridonov [bg], he is considered to be a founding figure of modern Bulgarian sculpture.

After graduating from teacher training in 1886, he studied sculpture and stoneworking at a newly created vocational school in Hořice; a city known for its high-quality sandstone.

He was there for only about a year, when he left to study decorative and monumental sculpting at the Academy of Fine Arts, Munich.

From 1894 to 1896, he studied composition at the Academy of Fine Arts, Prague, with Josef Václav Myslbek.

He also created monuments to the publisher, Hristo G. Danov (1909), the revolutionary, Georgi Izmirliev (1909), the writer and diplomat, Ivan Shishmanov (1920), the Irish-born journalist, James David Bourchier (1923), and a leader of the April Uprising, Stoyan Zaimov (1929); as well as a monument in Svishtov, dedicated to those who died to free that city during the Russo-Turkish War.