He was walking on the streets wearing bright, burlesque dresses, had no furniture in his apartment except the piles of the newspapers bundled to resemble a bed, a table and some sort of chairs, and dedicated all his time and mental energy to produce the art works.

Kalmykov was often drawing on the streets and in the parks of Alma-Ata, and soon became a city legend because of his extravagant clothes (bright red beret, blue trousers with gold stripes, and a coat with the attached tin cans) and behavior.

After his retirement in 1962 Kalmykov experienced increasing financial difficulties, ate very poorly (allegedly his food ratio the late years consisted only bread and milk, and he didn’t have warm meals for months).

Purportedly he suffered from mental illnesses, but no diagnostics or treatment was conducted during his life (posthumously he was diagnosed with schizophrenia by some of the local psychiatrists).

Shortly before his death Sergey Kalmykov was placed to a psychiatric clinic, where he died on April 27, 1967, from pneumonia aggravated by the extreme dystrophy.

Ten years later, in 2001, the same museum held the largest exhibition so far, commemorating the 110th anniversary of the artist, and displaying the art works from by private and public collections.

Alex Orlov, a collector of Russian origin from the US has reportedly established a foundation named after Sergey Kalmykov, and also published the first international edition of his work.