Sergey Ivanovich Kalmykov (; 6 October 1891 – 27 April 1967) was a Soviet painter, draughtsman, and writer. Barely known during his art career and abandoned at the end of his life, he is currently regarded as one of the most important figures of the Russian avant-garde art, an author of over fifteen hundred of paintings, drawings, illustrations, theater decorations, and numerous writings. During his life Kalmykov has developed an original style of painting and draftsmanship that can be described as 'magical impressionism'. His eccentric lifestyle matched the originality of his art works. He was walking on the streets wearing bright, burlesque dresses, had no furniture in his apartment except the piles of the newspapers bundled to resemble a bed, a table and some sort of chairs, and dedicated all his time and mental energy to produce the art works. He died in a psychiatric clinic where he was placed shortly before his death due to his presumed mental illness. Early life and studies Sergey Kalmykov was born in October 1891 in the Central Asian city of Samarkand, then a part of the Russian Empire. Soon after his birth the family moved to Orenburg where he studied in a gymnasium. In 1909-1910 Kalmykov lived in Moscow where he attended the Moscow Art School (studio of Konstantin Yuon, and from late 1919 in St.Petersburg where he was a member of the art studios of Mstislav Dobuzhinsky and Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin. It is widely believed that it was Kalmykov who inspired Petrov-Vodkin to create his famous Bathing of a Red Horse painting. Orenburg Period After the October Revolution in Russia Kalmykov has returned to Orenburg where he worked as a decorator, lecturer, artist and art critic. From 1926 till 1928 he was a member of the Association of the Artists of the Revolutionary Russia (see АХХР in Russian). In the beginning of the 1930s he was making theater decorations for the so-called Traveling Opera headed by Fyodor Vazerskiy. Alma-Ata Period In 1935 Sergey Kalmykov moved to Alma-Ata, then the capital of the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic, invited to work at the newly established Musical Theater of Alma-Ata, later reorganized into the Academic Theater of Opera and Ballet named after Abai. He worked with the theater until his retirement in 1950s [exact date is unknown], and created numerous decorations and art works for the theater performances. He also became increasingly known in the city