Ivan Silych Goryushkin-Sorokopudov (1873, 1954) was a Russian painter, graphic artist, and educator, born in the village of Nashchi in the Tambov province to a soldier and burlak Sila Goryushkin. He became an orphan at an early age and was raised by distant relatives, the merchants Sorokopudovs, in Saratov. As a teenager, he worked as a waiter and a 'boy at the buffet' on Volga steamers.

He made his way from poverty to the Academy of Arts on his own: he studied in Ilya Repin's workshop and received the title of artist in 1902. From his teacher, he learned precision in drawing, the plasticity of form, and a taste for portraiture and narrative painting. The realism of the Wanderers was built on an academic foundation without breaking.
The main theme became pre-Petrine Russia: 'Knyazhe at the Liturgy,' 'Woman of the Times of the Most Quiet Tsar,' 'Eve of Easter in Olden Times,' 'Distribution of Alms on Holy Night in Old Russia.' In 1903, he completed 'The Lament of Yaroslavna.' The story is almost devoid of pathos - it is everyday life, light, and the silence of monastery courtyards. The same lyrical note is heard in the landscape 'Sun - for Summer, Winter - for Frost.'

From 1903, he taught at the Drawing School of the Society for the Encouragement of Arts, and from 1908, at the Penza Art School, to which he dedicated almost half a century (1908, 1930, 1932, 1954). The Soviet authorities removed him from teaching, but from 1942 to 1945, he headed the school, and from 1942 to 1947, the Penza Art Gallery. In 1943, he was awarded the title of Honored Artist of the RSFSR and the Order of the Red Banner of Labor.

He died in December 1954 in the village of Ivanovka and was buried in Penza next to Konstantin Savitsky. Over two hundred of his works are kept in the Penza Art Gallery, where a memorial museum of the artist has been open since 1986; his works are also in the Tretyakov Gallery.