Viktor Ivanov painted Mother in 1964. It became a sketch for the painting Family, 1945, which is now exhibited in the Tretyakov Picture Gallery. Both works are included in the Russian Women cycle for which the artist was awarded the USSR State Prize in 1968. Peasant women from of Krasny Yar and Isady villages of the Ryazan region posed for these canvases.

In the painting Mother, the artist depicted a middle-aged woman in casual dark clothes and a simple gray scarf. The heroine of the picture is still young: her dark hair, which is visible from under the scarf, is not yet streaked with gray. However, she looks tired, pensive and sad. The impression is enhanced by the dark dress, yellowish-gray background and sharp contrasting shadows.

The canvas was painted in the austere style, one of the styles in realistic painting which was popular among Soviet artists at the turn of the 1950’s and 1960’s. It was characterized by sharp broken lines, generalized images without fine details, large color spots and restrained hues. Artists belonging to this direction often depicted the life of peasants, geologists, oilfield workers, sailors. It was those simple workers who were considered heroes of the Soviet era. Their images were romanticized in painting, literature and cinema.

Like other artists of the austere style, Ivanov was inspired by the creations of the 1920’s and 1930’s artists: Aristarkh Lentulov, Pyotr Konchalovsky, Georgy Nysski, Alexander Deineka.