"I'm sure that in the art of painting everything that was created by the so-called schools (the Venetians, the Spains, the Hollands) and such masters as Rafael, Tician, Velaskes and others is not a single person geniuses, but masters who absorbed the efforts of their predecessors", - these words of A.Osmerkin written in the response to Korovkevich's dissertation "Landscape in the creative work of A.Ivanov", define the artist's attitude towards the principles of general process in the development of art. A.Osmerkin had given thirty years for education of young artists and created a powerful painting school that was founded on the basis of high art culture of European classics of art, unity of leading tendencies of that time, especially impressionism and sezanism and russian painting (Ivanov, Surikov, Vrubel) and folk art that showed its power in Soviet art of 1960-1980 years in the works of such famous masters as: People's artists Krylov, Moiseenko, Tokarev, People's artists of Armenia - Aslamazyan, Abegyan, Bekaryan, the People's artist of Belorussia Zaytsev, People's artists of Russia Nikich and Konchalovsky. Besides, it should be mentioned, that such outstanding representatives of Ukrainian and Russian art as the painter-monumental Tolkachov and People's artist Petritckiy studied in A.Osmerkin's studio.
   From 1918 A.Osmerkin taught in the state free art workshops (Higher Arts-Technical Workshops/Higher Art-Technical Institutes). From 1932 to 1947 his pedagogical work was connected with Leningrad institute of painting, sculpture and architecture (since 1944 - Leningrad institute of painting, sculpture and architecture named after I. Repin), where he was the head of the individual painting studio, and in 1932-1933 - the head of the art department. In 1937-1948 A.Osmerkin taught painting in Moscow state art institute named after Surikov. While teaching in Leningrad and Moscow (three decades in Leningrad and two decades in Moscow) the artist promoted interchange and complementarity of Leningrad and Moscow painting schools creating a single general national school. In A.Osmerkin's judgment individual studios had to work in higher educational establishments. These studios should have functioned under the leadership of high-class artists who would be freely chosen by professionally trained students.
   Such idea had a lot in common with the plan of reformation offered by I.Repin in 1905, but unfortunately it was declined at that time, though such system enabled establishment of natural creative relationships between an artist and a student. Partially it was realized with the creation of the institute of painting, sculpture and architecture in Leningrad in 1932. According to the students and teachers, A.Osmerkin's painting workshops were notable for their special creative style and were considered to be the most interesting and even elite in art sense.
   As a teacher A. Osmerkin created the atmosphere of creative search among the students, aimed at the education of independent personality. Laying down the base of artistic skill at the same time A.Osmerkin carefully protected and cherished his individual art style. He thought that even a very talented student, who had accepted his system, having behind himself a full amount of professional skills and "an ability to see", wouldn't be able to become an artist if he cannot rid himself from "toga of schooling". A.Osmerkin expressed this pedagogical credo in a romantic form: "To become an artist you must betray me!".
   The teacher paid special attention to the education of student's general art culture. That is why the reproductions of famous masters' masterpieces of classical and modern art were exhibited in his studio regularly. It helped the students to understand possibilities of different solutions of painting tasks. They often discussed art, literature, theatre, the role of an artist in the society.
   A.Osmerkin mentioned in his article "Education of an artist": "First of all to train a young artist means to educate his art culture. It should be the beginning. An artist's hand should be operated by his mind and feelings. And only in this case the trade will not turn into the needlework. The trade alone without visual imagination will lead to the passiveness of the artistic thought. It is impossible to organize the picture as the whole, to achieve a correlation of details without a visual idea ". It was necessary to have special sensitiveness in order to find such correlation of the tone power of composition details, the colour saturation. A. Osmerkin believed that such sensitiveness could be and should be taught.
   "There is a level of the whole epochs - the Renaissance, for instance, - there a mediocre, the most unknown master painted more brightly and plastic than a first-rate paints now. There was some general culture, plasticity in those days". He deduced his own form of such education, which he called "method". At first a student is taught to love the material paints, a process of mixing colours, a mystery of canvas preparation and then through student's active participation in the creation of an academic staging for the depicted subject, and then to the deeper understanding of traditions through the enthusiasm for an experiment.
   This methodology, which was based on democracy and practical individual work, had given real positive results rather quickly. A lot of A.Osmerkin's graduates had become bright creative personalities, independent powerful painters, graphic artists, theatre and cinema artists: E.A.Aslamazyan, M.A.Abegyan, A.V.Bekaryan, M.A.BIrshtejn, O.B.Bogaevska, I.I.Vitman, O.G.Verejskij, F.P.Glebov, I.I.Godlevskiy, F.M.Doroshevich, O.I.Zharov, E.O.Zaytsev, R.M.Zelinskaya, P.N.Krylov, M.P.Konchalovskiy, O.O.Leshinskaya, V.V.Levic, O.O.Moiseenko, A.U.Nikich, S.I.Osipov, V.F.Podcovyrin, G.V.Pavlovskiy, B.V.Preobrazhenskiy, O.V.Rezvan, G.O.Rublov, G.O.Savinov, I.S.Soshnikov, V.V.Tokarev, Z.Sh.Tolkachov, V.K.Teterin, M.O.Feigin, J.M.Haimov, M.V.Shkuber, S.M.Yunovich. This is only the part of the whole list of students who graduated from A. Osmerkin's studio, but it includes practically the whole language alphabet, and a wide national geography. Due to A.Osmerkin's method all his students remained the members of the single art group, which was united not by group or personal interests, not by organizational rules or ideology, but by the cultural point of view and general art idea. And irrespective of how the society or the government had acknowledged their talent, A. Osmerkin's students remained the carriers of that world view and high demands for an artist's professional art level.