The painting Potato Harvest is the work of Soviet and Russian landscape painter Anatoly Kuvin, who holds the title of Honoured Artist of the Russian Federation. Kuvin was born in 1931 in the Vladimir Region village of Moliteyevo. He spent the first seven years of his life in the countryside. These years had a strong influence on his perception of the world. His memories of village life went on to become the main leitmotif of his creative path and the emotional foundation of the artist’s works. Kuvin got most of his art education at the V. Surikov Moscow State Academy Art Institute. After graduating in 1957, he returned to Vladimir, where he still paints to this day.

The painting depicts the traditional potato harvesting in autumn. Landscape always remained the artist’s number one genre. His favourite theme was the natural beauty and life of the village that has become a thing of the past, a fragment of which we can see in his work Potato Harvest. At first glance, the painting depicts an ordinary scene of people working on a fine autumn day, but it is distinguished by a special rich palette and subtle nostalgia.

Stylistically, Kuvin’s works are rooted in the Vladimir School of Painting, a special phenomenon in the Soviet art of the second half of the twentieth century that brought together landscape painters from the Vladimir Region. The works of this school are easily recognizable and have a number of distinctive features. They combine realism with a bright and sometimes exaggerated cartoon-like palette. This technique is characterized by a tiered arrangement and crude, mosaic-like strokes. The main themes are dedicated to provincial life — villages, bazaars, small town streets, and the natural beauty of central Russia.

Kuvin managed to significantly complement and enrich the Vladimir School of Painting. He combined the colour expression and decorative nature of the Vladimir style with the classical arrangement of space. In doing so, the artist was able to develop his own special, unique, inherent ‘Kuvin’ style. Kuvin’s works are displayed in the collections of the Vladimir-Suzdal Museum Reserve, the Kovrov Historical and Memorial Museum, the Ivanovo Regional Art Museum, the Exhibitions Directorate of the Russian Union of Artists, the Regional Centre of Fine Arts of Vladimir, and the Pushkin State Museum.