The Arzamas Art Museum collection contains an invitation card to the presentation by art historian Pyotr Kornilov entitled ‘New Works of Artist Pavel Vedenetsky (from the History of the Arzamas School of Painting)’ held on September 23, 1943, in the State Russian Museum.

Pyotr Kornilov was born in 1896 in Simbirsk. Upon finishing a non-classical secondary school in Kazan, he enrolled in the St. Petersburg University. In 1925, Pyotr Kornilov returned to Kazan to work for the Central Museum of the Tatar Autonomous Soviet Republic as the Head of the Old Russian Art Department.

Starting from 1932, Kornilov served as the Head of Graphic Art Department at the State Russian Museum, and then went to work for the Scientific Research Museum under the Academy of Arts. At the time of the Great Patriotic War he assisted in the evacuation of Russian art masterpieces and worked as a copy editor in the Iskusstvo (Arts) Publishing House supervising the publication of propaganda and printed materials.

Candidate of Art Critique and Professor Pyotr Kornilov was a renowned art historian and bibliophile. He owned a collection of drawings and water colors of Russian artists of the late 19th – early 20th century. He established a system of cultural monument protection in Tatarstan and was a member of the Leningrad Society of Bibliophiles. One of Kornilov’s major scientific interests was the A.V. Stupin Arzamas School of Painting, the history of which was described in his book.

In the late 1942, Pyotr Kornilov went to work in the Visual Arts Section of the Leningrad Municipal Council Executive Committee, Board of the Arts. In that organization, he printed artistically designed invitation cards.

Including the one of V.P. Belkin (August 6, 1943), the Russian National Artist M. V. Nesterov (1862–1942), M.V. Nesterov in Memoirs and Correspondence (October 15, 1943), and ours New Works of Artist Pavel Vedenetsky (from the History of the Arzamas School of Painting) (September 23, 1943) exhibited as part of the Arzamas Arts Museum collection.