The author of the article, shares unique materials for teaching portraiture, which are grounded in his family history and include previously unpublished archival documents. They belong to the family of Y. I. Skorikov (1924–1994), Merited Artist of the RSFSR, creative director of Artist House under the Union of Artists located in the city of Goryachy Klyuch, Krasnodar region. There Skorikov read a 300-hour lecture course on the theory of painting and held numerous workshops. Great number of artists from different parts of the USSR had the opportunity to attend these lectures. Owing to Skorikov efforts, Goryachy Klyuch has become a kind of Barbizon for artists of the Kuban region.

Artworks produced by the realistic school of painting in the south of Russia are to this day distinguished by its high quality. However, there have not been published any thorough studies devoted to the original theoretical concepts of Y. I. Skorikov, which still have not lost its relevance in this day and age. The present article, therefore, bridges that gap, significantly enriching our perception of the Russian Soviet school of painting in the second half of the 20th century. The artistic principles of Y. I. Skorikov have been successfully applied by the author of the article in his teaching of portraiture at the Sergey Andriaka Academy of Watercolor and Fine Arts. He combines the aforementioned practices and ideas of Skorikov with the knowledge previously obtained at the Ilya Glazunov Russian Academy of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture, in addition to his personal creative and pedagogical experience.