An extraordinary event took place in A.A.Osmerkin Art-Memorial Museum. The museum collection was replenished by works of A.A.Osmerkin's student - Iosif Naumovich Vaisblat.
   Unfortunately, the majority of the painter's works disappeared without a trace during the 1940s - 1950s or got to private collections in Russia, the USA, Germany. That is why landscapes: "Botanic garden", "Silver pine forest" and linocuts: "Hydra of communism", "Towards the daybreak", "Wedding" made during the 1960s, given to the museum by Candidate of Technical Sciences, researcher of problems of historical topography of Babiy Yar Lev E. Drobjazko, became a special present to the museum before the celebration of the 120th anniversary of A.Osmerkin. These works brightly reflect pictorial and colour tastes of I.Vaisblat, his creative philosophy and world-view.
   Iosif Vaisblat was born in 1897 in Kiev. From 1912 to 1918 he studied in Kiev Art College in workshop of famous Ukrainian painter Fedor G. Krichevski. In 1920 N.Vaisblat moved to Moscow to study at State Free Art Workshops, which later were reorganized into Higher Art-Technical Workshops and since 1927 - Higher Art-Technical Institute. Iosif Vaisblat attended sculpture workshop of Sergey Volnuhin and Boris Korolev, and at the same time he received pictorial skills at A.A.Osmerkin's workshop.
   Iosif Vaisblat was a member of Moscow organization of the Union of artists, a participant of numerous art exhibitions in Moscow and Kiev, but at the beginning of the 1950s a sad fate of representatives of creative intelligentsia of the USSR overtook him - an arrest and years of Stalin's camps. He reflected these pages of his life with a documentary precision in a series of paintings "Arrest", and his attitude to totalitarian society as a phenomenon in linocuts "Hydra of communism", "Towards the daybreak" and others made at the beginning of the 1960s.
   A deep feeling of national belonging was a characteristic feature of I.Vaisblat's creative work. The painter showed everyday life of the Jews with a joyful right and philosophic view in his works "Life", "Wedding", "Passions", in the series of theme drawings.
   Iosif N. Vaisblat died in 1979 in Moscow. His creative work had been forgotten for a long time. Only after the disintegration of the USSR and assertion of Ukrainian State I.Vasblat's works took their deserved place and were exhibited at Kiev vernisages - in such galleries as "Tadzio", "Mystets", in the Museum of History of Kiev, at the exhibitions "Jewish theme in the works of Kiev painters" in "Ukrainski dom" in Kiev, and "Jewish culture in Ukraine" in London.
   In 2001 exhibition of his works from L.E.Drobjazko's private collection was successfully opened in Kirovograd A.A.Osmerkin Art-Memorial Museum on December 6, before the celebration of the 109th anniversary of A.A.Osmerkin.