The graphic artist, painter, and muralist Serafim Alexandrovich Pavlovsky (1903–1989) was born in the Nizhny Novgorod Governorate. He held his first exhibition, presenting reproductions and studies painted from nature, in 1918, in the premises of the school where he was studying at that time.

From 1919 onwards, Serafim Pavlovsky devoted himself to painting. He attended the Balakhna Art Studio of the People’s House, where he studied under Mikhail Fyodorovich Chapkin, taught drawing for junior classes, and worked as a decorator.

In 1923, Pavlovsky entered the third year of the Art College in Nizhny Novgorod, and from 1925 to 1930 he studied at VKhUTEMAS in the class of monumental painting. There he had outstanding teachers: Konstantin Nikolaevich Istomin, Lev Alexandrovich Bruni, Vladimir Andreyevich Favorsky and Pavel Varfolomeyevich Kuznetsov.

From 1968 to 1985, Serafim Pavlovsky worked on illustrations for Khlebnikov’s supernarrative “Zangezi”. He presented a series of these paintings at a solo exhibition in Moscow (1986).

In the 1960s, Velimir Khlebnikov’s work had not yet gained worldwide recognition, but it was close to Pavlovsky’s own ideas and worldview. As an art theorist, Pavlovsky identified the founding laws in visual forms, constantly looking for a new pictorial language, which in state-approved artistic circles was called “harmful form-making”. His creative experiments were especially successfully reflected in his “Khlebnikov” compositions based on the works of the great Futurist (also known as budetlyanin — from the Russian word “budet” meaning “will be”).

Serafim Pavlovsky dreamed of decorating the facade and interior of the Khlebnikov House Museum in Astrakhan with frescoes. On January 9, 1986, the artist organized an anniversary evening dedicated to Velimir Khlebnikov at the Central House of Artists in Moscow. The event was attended by the prominent experts on Khlebnikov’s work Viktor Petrovich Grigoriev, Rudolf Valentinovich Duganov and Konstantin Alexandrovich Kedrov.

In 2018–2019, a personal exhibition of works by Serafim Pavlovsky was held at the Velimir Khlebnikov House Museum.

The presented portrait of the poet was donated to the museum by Alexander Pavlovsky, the artist’s grandson.

The painting is made in pastel colors. It is divided into two parts: on the right side is a portrait of the poet with a scroll and two signatures “VKh” and “SP-85” (initials of the poet and the artist), on the left — symbolic images of the globe, a warrior and the “mare of freedom”. By building a composition on a set of symbols, the artist did not always clearly draw out the details, only hinting at them and giving the viewer an opportunity to conceptualize the image.