The collection of Kustodiev’s graphics in the Astrakhan Art Gallery includes 23 linocuts. The artist’s friend and biographer Vsevolod Vladimirovich Voinov wrote that Kustodiev became interested in the technique of engraving on linoleum in the middle of the 1920s.

Despite the difficulty of this technique for a man in a wheelchair, Boris Mikhailovich mastered it very quickly and created a whole series of remarkable works. He made skilful use of the graphic means offered by linocuts. The contrasts of white and black, light and shadow, the shades of color generated by the different depths of the grooves made by the chisels — all this was extremely appealing to the artist, creating a new language of the work.

All his life the artist took great interest in the theater, so it is not surprising that among Kustodiev’s linocuts there are portraits of Leningrad theater actors. The portraits of Yury Korvin-Krukovsky, Boris Gorin-Goryainov and Nikolay Monakhov were made in 1926, all of them created for the actors’ anniversaries.

Nikolay Fedorovich Monakhov (1875–1936) is called by modern theater historians the first leading actor of the Bolshoi Drama Theater, its soul. A Russian and Soviet theater, movie actor and operetta actor and singer, he “joined the serious repertoire” only at the age of 44. The actor rose to fame in the roles of Goldoni’s Truffaldino, Shakespeare’s Richard III, and Schiller’s Franz in “The Robbers”. In his note to Monakhov, Kustodiev expressed his admiration for the actor’s performance in Don Carlos, based on Friedrich Schiller’s play, and reported on the preparation of a portrait commissioned for the anniversary.

The portrait was engraved for the benefit performance of Nikolay Monakhov, which took place on March 17, 1926, in honor of the 30th anniversary of the actor’s theater career. The two portraits of Monakhov, previously made by Kustodiev on paper in sanguine and graphite pencil, were used for the engraving. The portrait depicts the artist in a suit and striped shirt with a tie; he looks intently into the distance, with the stage backdrop revealing a landscape of trees and clouds. At the bottom left are the Roman numerals XXX, meaning 30 years of service to the theater.