Viktor Mitin was born in 1949. He is unusual among Russian artists in that he did not follow the traditional training. There was no significant art training in the town where he grew up, so it was not until he left that town to serve in the army that he began to receive basic training. After his term of service, he went to the Art College in Penza. He worked very hard there, stopping only twenty minutes a day to eat supper, and in his first month had produced more work than most students did in a year. Before long, he began to fear that if he stayed at Penza, he would copy the works of his professors and old masters and never develop his own distinct style, so he left the school determined to copy no one, not even himself. Mitin was a very controversial artist. In fact, when one of his shows opened in 1981, it was immediately closed and the guards were ordered not to let anyone in. Mitin believed that there was only one teacher for a painter and that teacher was nature.