Kiev masters have not yet become the object of a separate study despite their cultural prominence in Russia. With rare exceptions, such examples of iconographic art can only be found in single copies in the catalogs of exhibitions and museum collections. The article is the first to present the collection and analyze signature works by a hitherto unknown Kiev carver Grigory Bondarevsky, active during the second third of the 19th century. They include four icons and one cross discovered in various museums and private collections across multiple cities. The difficulty in identifying these art objects is attributed to the fact that the artist did not always indicate his full name and surname, but more often carved only his initials. The examination of the artworks has made it possible to clarify the conception and intent behind them, determine the peculiarities of the author’s manner of carving and specific circumstances associated with their execution, as well as to roughly arrange them according to the chronology of creation. The narrative unfolding over several pieces depicting the scene of the “Dormition of the Mother of God”, immensely popular in Kiev, is linked to the tradition of making carved icons and crosses for Kiev pilgrims, however, they do not belong to mass production, but are custom made. To understand the technology of creating such handicraft items, a brief description of the Kiev carving industry is given, with the main source of information being a single publication from the middle of the 19^th century. Archival documents reveal that the name of G. Bondarevsky was well-known in central Russia, where he enjoyed great prestige as an outstanding carver. His other artwork “Our Lady of Abalak”, as well as an altar cross portraying scenes from the Passion cycle, feasts and selected saints attest to his ties with Siberia.

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shares unique materials for teaching portraiture, which are grounded in his family history and include previously unpublished archival documents.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.

Since the 1660s, the incorruptible relics of the Patriarch of Constantinople Athanasius III (Patellarius), buried according to a Greek custom in a seated position, have been venerated in the Mgar Holy Transfiguration Monastery near the town of Lubny in the Poltava province of the historical Malorussian region. Due to the prolonged uncertainty concerning the official recognition of him as a saint, the iconography of the patriarch is virtually devoid of traditional iconographic images. Instead, small pilgrimage depictions of the shrine with his relics or the entire tomb complex have become widespread. The icons and iconographic samples found in museums and private collections, as well as documents on the transfer of the relics and the design of the reliquary, allow us to expand our understanding of the specifics and stages of development of this peculiar composition. The article brings to light several successive iconographic renditions, associated with the manufacture of a new reliquary and the saint’s increased veneration after the publication of hagiographic materials. While the majority of the surviving icons were made in the modern-day territories of Ukraine, they were in demand and copied by the masters of central Russia. The portrayals of Saint Athanasius III, created in the monastery workshops or commissioned by the Mgar monastery, characterize the little-known center of local icon painting of the late 18th – mid-19th centuries.