On June 25, 2018 a theme exhibition “I live the way I’ve been dreaming all my live…” was presented in O.O.Osmerkin Art- Memorial Museum. It was dedicated to the 65th anniversary of the death of a prominent artist and pedagogue Oleksandr Osmerkin.
    O.O.Osmerkin passed away on June 25, 1953, full of hope and faith in the irresistible power of art, as he was working on a sketch “Plioskove”. Currently, the sketch and his self-portrait of 1951 are the main exhibit items of the theme exhibition.
    “I live the way I’ve been dreaming all my live…” – these are the word from the painter Oleksandr Osmerkin’s letter of 1952 were chosen as a title for the exposition for a reason. Despite, accusal in formalism and mounted campaign of moral and physical harassment, endless trail – the circumstances that lead to the severe terminal illness of the painter, there were days of happiness in his life. He perceived the world in a realistic manner, giving credit to its life-giving power. He was devoted to art for whole his life. His Elisavethrad friend A.M.Nurnberg recollected: “At this hard period he painted only merry paintings full of optimism. No gloomy pessimistic work. His wife Nadia told me about his fourth brain attack. It happened in the morning when he was painting a wonderful, unforgettable and his last landscape. He died with a brush in his hand, as he desired…”
    It is symbolic that students of Art and Graphic Art Department of Art Faculty of Central Ukrainian State Pedagogical University named after V.Vynnychenka came to the museum that day. The students were supervised by senior lecturer, member of the National Union of Artists of Ukraine and the National Union of Folk Masters of Ukraine LarysaKulinich. They did an internship and were making sketches of the interior and historical façade of the museum building. Also, students listened with interest to the leading researcher of the museum, Merited Artist of Ukraine Andrii Nadezhdin who told about the last years of life and career of the professor of Art O.O.Osmerkin and about his plein air sketchings. At the plein airs withF.S.Kozachinskii, the head of the evening drawing classes of county non-classical secondary school, O.O.Osmerkin created wonderful sketches “Suburbs of Elisavethrad” and “Ethanol plant in Elisavethrad” (1910-1911.
    Later, when he became a teacher of Moscow Art Institute named after V.I.Surikov himself, he often took his students to practice. During that time he created sketches “Morning. The Crimea.Kozy” and “The Crimean sketch with poplars” (1938-1939). All the sketches are now the gems of the memorial exposition of the museum.