In the article, the author analyzed works by Gabriel Glikman (1913-2003), an official socialist realist sculptor and unofficial “expressionist” painter. Both official and unofficial lines of his creative work developed alongside until his emigration in 1980. A considerable amount of articles is dedicated to his painting, yet their approach is journalistic rather than art-critical. Glikman’s biography and personality as well as his choice of models for portraying determined their enthusiastic rhetoric in many regards. Analytical works on his sculptures and paintings still do not exist, but this article is to fill this gap to a certain degree. The researcher considered Glikman’s work as a whole phenomenon, using archival documents, texts of Glikman’s memoires, and making the comparative study of his art works. The author traced varied and unobvious connections between his socialist realistic sculptures and “expressionist” paintings, specifying the individualities of his creative manner, and supposing sources of several of his artworks. The researcher concluded that the polar opposite characteristics used in the studies of Soviet art of the second half of the 20th century and based on relationships between an artist and society are quite relative. The author summarized that it’s necessary to shift the focus of attention from general studies of artistic process of the epoch to investigation of individual cases.