Max Avadievich Birshtein was a Soviet painter and graphic artist. He graduated from the Surikov Moscow Art Institute, where his teacher was the prominent artist and art critic Igor Grabar.

The museum’s collection includes 16 works by Max Birshtein, some of which were donated by the artist himself.

In the 1960s, he worked on a series of portraits of his fellow artists and cultural figures. He described in detail his process of painting one of the portraits — of Alexander Osmerkin and Robert Falk — in his autobiographical book “Life and Paintings” as follows,

In the picture-memoir (it was painted after the famous painters passed away) Max Birshtein subtly conveyed the atmosphere of spiritual communication between the masters. Robert Falk’s workshop, located on the top floor of the famous Pertsov house, is dimly lit: the meeting of old friends and colleagues has dragged on, and it is now surely evening. Sculptures, vases, and several canvases are hidden on the shelves, facing the wall.

Angelina Shchekin-Krotova, Falk’s wife, mentioned in her memoirs that when these two artists met, they always had a heated conversation about art: they talked about painting, poetry and music. Decades later, in this portrait, Birshtein conveys a keen sense of that time, when the talented artists faced many difficulties as their art did not meet the requirements of socialist realism.