Victor Mikhailovich Malyi was born in 1946 in the city of Zhdanov of Donetsk region, at present it is Mariupol’. He graduated from Krasnodar Art School with honors in 1967. After graduating Moscow State Academic Art Institute named after Vasily Ivanovich Surikov in 1976, Victor Malyi had a probation period at that Institute. Then he became a teacher of Moscow State Academic Art Institute. Nowadays he is a professor. 

Viktor Mikhailovich used to come to Gorokhovets with students of Moscow State Academic Art Institute named after Vasily Ivanovich Surikov to paint in the open air in summer for more than 20 years. Nowadays many of his students are well-known artists in Russia and abroad.

When the students came to paint in the open air they lived in a house in Gorokhovets. The house is of historic value of Gorokhovets. It was the Oznobishins house who were landowners. The house is located in Naberezhnaya (embankment) street. To save this monument of local architecture from destruction in 1990 -s Viktor Mikhailovich bought it.

Viktor Mikhailovich’s pictures are realistic, of classical style, precise and convey all the smallest nuances of still lives, landscapes, movement of air and fire.

Since 1980-s Victor Mikhailovich has been a great friend and a popularizer of Gorokhovets historical-architectural museum for many years. He is attracted by ancient things conserved in the museum. Under the agreement with the museum administration he painted some pictures of the museum expositions. They are interiors of the museum and still lives with the museum exhibits. 

The picture “The Master’s Room” was painted by Victor Malyi in the period of close creative union of the artist and Gorokhovets museum in 1995.

Strict academic style of Victor Malyi’s painting conveys severe rebellious character of the XVII^th century when Simeon Ershov’s house was built in the most exact way.