During the early 1930s, professional painters in the USSR were organized into the Union of Soviet Artists. The main union had regional and local branches and one of them was the Union of Artists of Leningrad (LOSSKh). It was established in 1932 as a creative and artistic union composed of artists as well as art critics. The noted painter Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin (1878-1939) was elected its first chairman. The Leningrad branch also had an experimental lithographic workshop that printed material produced in-house. In 1991, the Leningrad branch became the Saint Petersburg Union of Artists. The Moscow branch (formed in June 1932) was called MOSSKh and it also was one of the first major artist unions established during the Soviet era. The Moscow branch was renamed MSSKh in 1938 and again renamed (MOSKh) in 1957 during a re-organization.