Stepan Pisakhov was often called the "Russian Baron Munchausen," and in the last years of his life, he became a living legend of Arkhangelsk. He admitted that he adhered to a "patriarchal style" in appearance: he had long hair, thick eyebrows, drooping mustaches, and a square beard, with a mischievous sparkle in his eyes. He wore an old black suit, a constant hat, and always held a cane. Pisakhov, possessing a sharp mind, often told strangers amazing northern tales and fables. Despite his brilliant education and extensive knowledge in painting, literature, and ethnography, he was considered an eccentric, which he himself had cultivated.

About himself, Stepan Grigoryevich said: "I am used to being under a 'glass dome.' It is convenient: in icy conditions, they support you, they help you onto the tram. When asked about the year, I reply: on Saturday, it will be 500!"

Despite his eccentricity, Pisakhov remained the "poetic soul of the North." Art historians noted that he knew the palette, musical scale, dialect, and cunning of folk speech, the courageous character of the Pomors, everything that constitutes the deep nature of the northern region.

Stepan Grigoryevich was born into a prosperous family of a baptized Jew and a native Arkhangelsk woman from the Old Believer lineage. His father raised him in the spirit of strict pragmatism, while his mother instilled in him the harsh Old Believer traditions. The head of the family owned a jewelry workshop and store and wanted his son to engage in engraving, considering his passion for reading and painting a waste of time. After graduating from the city school, Stepan, freed from his father's guardianship, went to the Solovetsky Islands.

After several years of wandering, Pisakhov briefly interrupts them to study at the Baron Stieglitz Art School in St. Petersburg. He dedicates all his free time to painting. After being expelled from the school for criticizing autocracy, he continues to travel in search of "God's truth," visiting the Arctic, France, Mediterranean countries, Turkey, Syria, Palestine, and Egypt. Traveling with an easel, he remains true to art, creating landscapes, sketches, and drawings in various corners of the world.

After serving in the Finnish militia during World War I, he returns to Arkhangelsk to conduct ethnographic research on the Russian North, continuing to hold his own exhibitions. In the early 1920s, his first tales are published in Arkhangelsk magazines, and by the mid-1930s, they begin to be printed in capital publications. He gains fame as a storyteller.

The creative life of Stepan Pisakhov, filled with diverse events, is presented in the museum against the backdrop of the era in which he lived. In eight halls, more than 150 of his paintings and drawings are exhibited. Among the exhibits are manuscripts, documents, photographs from his archive, personal belongings, as well as folk costumes of the Pomors, household utensils, and the furnishings of northern residents' homes, recreating the atmosphere of that time.