Savva Mamontov. Kopshitser M.I.

Savva Ivanovich Mamontov (1841–1918) - a large Russian industrialist, an entrepreneur and philanthropist, the heir to a successful merchant dynasty. Even in his youth, the enthusiasm of Savva's theater was alarming the father of the future patron of arts, a large wine farm, Ivan Fedorovich Mamontov: instead of training, Savva found much more pleasure in "music, singing and vomiting in a dramatic society." A century later, it is difficult to even imagine what path the Russian art would go if the famous Abramtsev circle had not been created and other glorious undertakings of Mamontov had not been undertaken.

The book of Mark Isaevich Kopshitser (1923–1982), which also created the remarkable biographies of Vasily Polenov and Valentin Serov, is the fruit of many years of work on the study and systematization of extensive documentary material, which retained certificates of life and activity of a person whose contribution to The history of Russian art is truly invaluable - Savva Ivanovich Mamontov.