The artist, Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky, was born on September 25th, 1883 in the village of Berestovo near Mogilyov in the Mogilyov district of Tambov province. He graduated from the Mogilyov Art School of Vladimir Ivanovic and began work as a stage designer and scenic artist. Afterward, he became a teacher at the Tambov Art School and taught there for six years. In 1909 he moved to Odessa and then to St
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Petersburg. He became a Professor at the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts and later at the Kiev Art School (he was a member of the renowned "Donetsk School" of painters).
In 1916 he joined the Imperial Russian Army as an infantry officer. He was decorated with the Order of Saint George (4th class) for his bravery during World War I; however, he returned home after being wounded on two occasions. In 1919, after recovering from his injuries, he moved to Moscow where he joined the faculty of the Moscow Institute of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture.
In 1923, with several other artists from his school, Krzhizhanovsky formed the "Kirschner-Krzhizhanovsky" society dedicated to art education and exhibiting their work together. Four years later they opened a private art school whose mission was "to create a new Russian art which would be positive and free from all foreign influences." The museum's collection consists primarily of paintings by Mikhail Krzhizhanovsky (Sigizmund's brother) who had been a student at the Odessa Art School between 1907 and 1910. The collection also includes works by Vladimir Vladimirovich Kruchurov, Zenon Kuznetsov, Alexander Chayanovich, Olga Taussky-Barsky and others.