At the same time in Samarkand was evacuated to Moscow Art Institute. Surikov, allowing Tabenkin do it and continue his artistic education. This also contributed to an active and creative environment that existed here at this difficult time: B. Tabor, A. Labas, V. Ufimtsev, A. Osmyorkin and many other artists.

In 1949 Tabenkin graduated from Art Institute, in 1951, enters into the Union of Artists of the USSR. To obtain the necessary income Tabenkin works of art plant, which provides artists of social order. In the late 60's. artist moving away from traditional style and creates a formalist work, where the first place there is an emotional experience, close to the mystical vision of the world. No form, but the color. In 1968, along with C. Friedman, V. Popkov, and E. Rastorgueva he participates in the exhibition of the Group of sixteen. Nevertheless, the artist was not well received in those circles, where born non-conformist art: it grows interest in the expressive possibilities of still life. For ten years he wrote many of them, and realized that, through a still life, he can pass an infinite number of feelings.
Undoubtedly, the direct disclosure of the semantics of still life as a reflection of the universe being developed at that time Tabenkin, Weisberg and Krasnopevtsev comes from the twenties of the twentieth century - in particular, from the works of Giorgio Morandi.

In the early 70's. had a real breakthrough: Tabenkin stopped writing still lives with ready-made objects: he began to create them himself. Of the refractory clay, plaster, papier-mache figures, he made hundreds of people, animals, various objects and put them in the space created by him on the table in his workshop. Work on which large and small forms embedded in a shallow space, no doubt, have acquired new constructive, authentic architecture of which was not in the art.

Tabenkin previous years. Clay figurines - a vivid embodiment of metaphors about the creation of man in the Old Testament.
Sam Tabenkin fully felt that he was held as an artist. The second exhibition of the Group of Sixteen "in 1975 convinced him of the correctness of the chosen path. After the show he is completely focused on still lifes, creating a wonderful "World Tabenkin": colorful surfaces are elegance and beauty. The broad strokes of the calm, the manner of applying paint, perhaps reminiscent of the frescoes, as well as an exceptional sense of natural mineral pigments, which incarnates Tabenkin of Giotto and Masaccio.

In 1988 became one of the artist's most joyous: he was the only artist of his generation, participated in the Moscow landmark auction of Sotheby's. Much has been said about him in the movie BBC BBC about the new Russian art.

In late 1988, the artist was no more.