The sculptural portrait of Sergei Prokofiev was designed by a creative team of Soviet caricaturists “Kukryniksy”. It included the artists Mikhail Kupriyanov, Porfiri Krylov, and Nikolai Sokolov. Their imposing pseudonym was derived from the first letters of their first and last names.

The artists created caricatures of poets and writers, actors and directors, painters and sculptors. They also often portrayed musicians, including Sergei Prokofiev, Dmitri Kabalevsky, Aram Khachaturian, Ivan Kozlovsky, Sviatoslav Richter, Emil Gilels, David Oistrakh, Van Cliburn, and Rudolf Kehrer. The Kukryniksy received wide recognition for their poignant political caricatures. They also illustrated a number of books by such authors as Nikolay Gogol, Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin, Anton Chekhov, Maxim Gorky, Miguel de Cervantes, and Ilf and Petrov.

The poet and editor-in-chief of the “Komsomolia” magazine Alexander Zharov described the beginning of the creative career of the Kukryniksy:

The artists were agemates: Kupriyanov and Sokolov were born in 1903, and Krylov was born in 1902. All of them came from different regions: Kupriyanov was born in the town of Tetyushi in Tatarstan; Krylov — in the village of Shchelkunovo, the Tula Region; and Sokolov — in the village of Tsaritsyno. The young men met and became friends during their years at VKhUTEMAS, a Moscow art school. Kupriyanov and Sokolov studied at the department of graphic arts, while Krylov studied painting. The three of them were united by their appreciation for satirical caricatures. They published their first work in 1925.