The museum presents a series of reliefs created by Alexander Nikolayevich Burganov for the northern hall of the Tretyakovskaya metro station which was opened on January 11, 1986. In the décor of the station, the sculptor depicted brilliant painters who had contributed greatly to the development of Russian art.

Nowadays the models of these portraits are kept at the Burganov House. The artists include Mikhail Alexandrovich Vrubel, Valentin Alexandrovich Serov, Ivan Ivanovich Shishkin, Viktor Mikhailovich Vasnetsov, Isaac Ilyich Levitan, Vasily Vasilyevich Vereshchagin, and Alexey Gavrilovich Venetsianov.

The portrait of Valentin Serov was based on the original charcoal drawing by Ilya Efimovich Repin made in 1901. It was intended to be colorized, but a color version was never created. Instead, the drawing inspired this sculpture by Alexander Burganov.

Valentin Serov, in turn, created a portrait of the landscapist Isaac Levitan. Ivan Nikolayevich Kramskoy painted a portrait of another master of the Russian landscape, Ivan Shishkin.

The depiction of Viktor Vasnetsov is based on the artist’s self-portrait that he painted in 1873. During that time, the painter, architect, and one of the founders of the neo-Russian style was about to become famous. Several years later, he created his famous paintings “Knight at the Crossroads” (1882), “Alyonushka” (1881), “Ivan Tsarevich Riding the Gray Wolf” (1889), and “Bogatyrs” (1881–1898).

The image of the Art Nouveau painter Mikhail Vrubel is also based on his self-portrait.

The relief image of Vasily Vereshchagin, a battle artist and a cavalier of the Order of St. George, was based on the etching by the Russian graphic artist Vasily Vasilyevich Mate. His prints accompanied the “Bulletin of Fine Arts”, a magazine published with the support of the Imperial Academy of Arts.

Alexander Burganov had a particular idea in mind when designing this gallery of portraits of Russian artists. He arranged it around the stories of their friendships, creative paths, and artworks in which brilliant artists depicted each other. This composition brings together a circle of friends, colleagues, and like-minded individuals. The connections between the artists, embodied by Alexander Burganov, have gathered them once again.