Nikolai Stepanov was a graphic artist, sculptor, and caricaturist, and one of the founders of the genre of friendly caricature in Russian art. Born in Kaluga, Nikolai Stepanov studied at the Moscow University Noble Boarding School, where he began writing poetry. Later he entered the service of the State Treasury Department. During this period, he developed an interest in caricature. He was strongly influenced by the artist Yakov Yanenko, who introduced him into a circle of artists, writers, and musicians. In this environment he met Mikhail Glinka, who subsequently became a frequent subject of Stepanov’s caricatures and sculptural works. In 1843, Stepanov retired from government service and devoted himself entirely to artistic activity. In the second half of the 1840s, he collaborated with a number of illustrated periodicals, including “Eralash”, “Illustrated Almanac”, “Son of the Fatherland” (“Syn Otechestva”), and others. For these journals he produced caricatures on a wide range of subjects, including political ones. Later, together with the poet Vasily Kurochkin, he founded the satirical journal “Iskra”, which maintained a sharply critical social orientation and attacked economic inequality and other social problems. In 1864, following his break with Vasily Kurochkin, Nikolai Stepanov took part in establishing a new satirical journal, “Budilnik”. Nikolai Stepanov was among the first to introduce a comic element into sculpture, creating grotesque figurines and busts of famous contemporaries. The first series consisted of about eighty works. Owing to their widespread popularity, he was compelled to organize a workshop with molders to produce the figurines in series. The collection of the Bakhrushin Theatre Museum includes both Nikolai Stepanov’s graphic works and his grotesque figurines.