In 2007, one year after the celebration of Boris Chernyshev’s centenary, the Tretyakov State Gallery hosted an exhibition dedicated to his anniversary, which marked the beginning of Chernyshev’s comeback in the art world.  What is the overall importance of Boris Chernyshev’s legacy and, more specifically, how should we evaluate each of the parts making up this legacy?  These questions are now on the table.  Along with producing brilliant monumental art pieces,  impressive mosaics and frescoes, Chernyshev created thousands of works of art that could be seen either as mere exercises and therefore pieces of minor importance,  or as specimens of a distinctive genre, “the workshop art”, which is an inner, laboratory kind of art unsuitable for a dialogue with actual or hypothetical critique, censorship and the conformist art scene. Today the importance of this kind of work is self-evident.