Cabaret

Georgiev etched this in Paris in 1931, and it belongs to a small group of city scenes he made there at the same time. Alongside the bright night of the cabaret he cut plates he called The Unemployed and Poor Woman from the Neighbourhood. These were the depression years, and the two faces of the city sat side by side in his portfolio: the lit-up entertainment and the people the slump had put on the street. Etching gave him a thin line bitten by acid rather than cut, so he could work the crowd and the light more finely than a woodcut would. The plate is about 24 centimetres tall, and the print is kept today in the National Gallery in Sofia.