Viktor Proshkin was born into a family of merchants in the town of Oboyan’, Kursk province. In 1924, he entered the Higher Art and Technical Institute in Petrograd where he was taught by Savinov A.I., Bobrovskiy G.M., Petrov-Vodkin K.S., Karev V.E. In 1929, Proshkin graduated from the workshop of Karev V.E. with a graduation work entitled “In the factory floor”. The industrial theme was the principle one in Proshkin’s creative work. Since the artist visited construction of Kharkov plant in 1930, he created a series of pictures called “Traktorostroy” which was presented at the “Socialism Industry” exhibition in 1931. The same year the artist became one of the founders of the Leningrad establishment of the Artists’ Society and from 1938 to 1946 he held a position of the executive secretary. In 1936, V. Proshkin was attracted by the aviation theme and created a series called the “Paratroopers”. A work from this series “A woman paratrooper in the air” was presented at the All-Soviet Union exhibition in Moscow held in 1937 and at the “Socialism Industry” in 1938. In 1948, Proshkin started teaching at the Leningrad Higher Arts and Crafts College named after V.I. Mukhina, in 1951 he obtained the academic title of assistant professor. In 1957 the artist was appointed head of the common painting department and ten years later he obtained the title of painting professor. In 1976 Y.N. Lukin who was the president of Leningrad Higher Arts and Crafts College at that time offered Proshkin to arrange a one-man exhibition dedicated to his 70th anniversary. The artist prepared 120 paintings but a fire broke out in his workshop and almost all works were destroyed. Nowadays Viktor Proshkin’s works are shown in the State Russian museum, the State Museum of History of Saint-Petersburg, the Museum of Anna Akhmatova, Leningrad Museum of Military Defense, Cheboksary Art Gallery, the Art museums of Arkhangelsk, Krasnoyarsk, Yaroslavl, in a collection of contemporary art at the “Manezh” central showroom as well as in private collections in Russia, Italy, France and USA.