Yefim Chestnyakov

Efim Vasilievich Chestnyakov (Russian: Ефи́м Васи́льевич Честняко́в; December 19 , 1874, Shablovo, Kostroma province — June 27, 1961, Shablovo, Kostroma region) was a Russian painter (created portraits and fairy tale subjects), writer (known for his fairy tales, stories, a novel in verse, poems, reflections), sculptor (worked in clay plastic), and the creator of the children's theater in Shablovo.

Biography Efim Chestnyakov was born on December 19 (31), 1874 in the village of Shablovo, Kologrivsky uyezd, Kostroma Governorate, in the peasant family of Samoilovs. He was the only son of three children, and charged with family's support (such children, on whom the support of the family fell, were called chestnyak, from Russian "an honest person", and that's where his surname comes from).

Since childhood he was interested in painting. He learned to read and write at first with a private teacher, and then at the Zemstvo public school in the village of Krutets. His first teacher in the village was his uncle Frol. Later, when a zemstvo school was opened a short distance from the village, Chestnyakov enrolled there.

In 1889, he graduated from the Kologriva District School, where his first professional mentor was the artist Ivan Borisovich Perfiliev, a teacher of drawing and drafting. Perfiliev also organized amateur performances in Kologriva, but in 1908 he was exiled to Siberia. In protest against this injustice, Chestnyakov's older sister Alexandra, a graduate of the Kologriva Women's Progymnasium, refused a golden medal. The collection of public funds began. By his trip to St. Petersburg in the fall of 1899, a rather large sum was collected — more than 300 rubles.

In the autumn of the revolutionary 1905, Chestnyakov left his studies and returned to Shablovo. He promised Vichuga's benefactors that he would return to St. Petersburg, but he could not return until 1913. Nevertheless, he received money from Vichuga every month until July 1908.

The restoration of the paintings began in the 1970s, under the direction of Savva Yamshchikov. The paintings that were restored at that time were in a difficult condition. Almost all the paintings had crumbling of the ground and the paint layer, which needed to be reinforced. Many paintings had to be restored, because of the canvas deformation. One of the paintings, The City of Universal Welfare, was cut into five pieces. One of the most difficult to restore was the painting Kolyada, made on a very thin canvas. Because of the lack of a stretcher, the canvas got shrank and shrived, so the painting torn into pieces. Despite all the difficulties of restoration, none of the discovered paintings was lost.