Ivan Silych Goryushkin-Sorokopudov wrote in his autobiography,

The future artist became an orphan at the age of six.

From an early age, Ivan Goryushkin-Sorokopudov experienced life “among common people”. He was sent to study with the merchant Kuzmin and spent four years in an orphanage, where he faced the harsh reality. Additionally, he worked as a “boy at the buffet” on steamships that traveled from Saratov to Astrakhan and up the Volga River. During this time, he developed a keen interest in drawing. In his free moments, he would take a notebook from his pocket to make quick sketches of scenes or landscapes that caught his eye.

By chance, during one of his trips along the Volga, the young Ivan Goryushkin-Sorokopudov met Dr. Pavel Yakovlevich Pyasetsky, a traveler who had journeyed through Mongolia, China, and Eastern Siberia. After seeing the drawings of the “buffet boy”, Pyasetsky advised him to study under the Astrakhan artist Pavel Alekseyevich Vlasov, who had established an art studio.

As an experienced teacher, Pavel Vlasov aimed not only to provide his students with fundamental academic knowledge to prepare them for further education but also to instill a love for painting from life. This approach enabled Ivan Goryushkin-Sorokopudov to deeply explore provincial life, allowing him to recognize and remember expressive types, characters, and the nuances of everyday life.

Ivan Goryushkin-Sorokopudov was the first among his friends from school to go to Saint Petersburg to continue his art education. Later, Boris Mikhailovich Kustodiev and Alexander Ivanovich Vakhrameyev followed him, and Goryushkin-Sorokopudov’s friendship with the latter would last for many years.