The exhibition in the last room of the House-Museum is devoted to the late period of Dmitry Mamin-Sibiryak’s work — St. Petersburg period. On the wall, there is a caricature portrait of the writer. It was drawn by artist Valery Carrick.

The work entered the museum’s collection in June 1947 from the archives of the Pushkin House of the Academy of Sciences (IRLI) in St. Petersburg.

The graphic caricaturist Valery Carrick was born in 1869. He became famous for his series of friendly caricatures of famous writers, politicians and public figures of the time. Carrick drew the writers Leonid Andreyev and Maxim Gorky, the critic Alexander Skabichevsky, and the playwright Yevgeny Chirikov. Some of these watercolor caricatures are kept in the Maxim Gorky Museum in Moscow.

Valery Carrick collaborated with the magazine “Russian Wealth” [“Russkoye Bogatstvo”] and attended “Thursdays” in the editorial office — weekly meetings for the staff. The guests usually sat around a long table, drank tea with sandwiches and discussed political and literary news.

Mamin-Sibiryak also worked with the magazine and participated in “Thursdays”.

On “Thursdays” Carrick drew caricatures of those present. The artist made a caricature of Dmitry Mamin-Sibiryak in his traditional manner: he portrayed the writer in profile and framed his portrait in a rectangular frame.

Carrick managed to convey the appearance of Mamin-Sibiryak: at the time he was already of an age, but remained energetic and active. The artist left his signature in the upper right corner — his initial letters in Latin.

Next to the caricature, there is a photocopy of Ilya Repin’s self-portrait from 1902. The artist, like Carrick and Mamin-Sibiryak, was a frequent guest at literary meetings of the mid — late 19th century.

The collection of the house-museum contains a photo of famous writers of the late 19th century — the early 20th century: Maxim Gorky, Dmitry Mamin-Sibiryak, Nikolay Teleshov, and Ivan Bunin. The picture was taken by their friend, Dr. Leonid Sredin on April 16, 1900 in Yalta. Each participant of the meeting left his signature at the bottom of the photo.

The writers gathered at Sredin’s dacha in the Crimea. Local intelligentsia as well as writers and musicians from the capital came there. In 1900 alone, Anton Chekhov, Alexander Kuprin, Sergey Yelpatievsky, Konstantin Stanislavsky, Sergey Rakhmaninov, Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko and others were Sredin’s guests.

By the time the picture was taken, Maxim Gorky and Dmitry Mamin-Sibiryak had known each other for almost 10 years. They first met in St. Petersburg, where the Ural writer moved in 1891.

Gorky mentioned Mamin-Sibiryak several times in his critical articles and essays with admiration. He noted his talent, unusual, memorable language and believed that his work was important for the people of the Urals and for the entire culture of the region.

Ivan Bunin met Dmitry Mamin-Sibiryak at a literary event in December 1895. They were published in the same magazines — “New Word” [“Novoe Slovo”], “Russian Wealth” [“Russkoye Bogatstvo”], “Reading to Children” [“Detskoye Chteniye”] and others, so they often met at work. The colleagues soon became friends.

The writer Nikolay Teleshov organized a literary circle “Sreda” in St. Petersburg for 20 years. Famous metropolitan writers, critics and journalists gathered in his house. Mamin-Sibiryak was among the guests.

In 1912, the members of the circle “Sreda” congratulated Dmitry Mamin-Sibiryak on the 40th anniversary of his creative work. Thirty-nine writers signed the welcome letter. Ivan Bunin and Nikolay Teleshov were among them. The letter is displayed at the exposition of the house-museum.