Viktor Ivanovich Lapin was born October 14, 1923 in the village of Zolotarevka Akhtyrsky (Trostyanetsky) district of the Sumy region. As a young boy he entered several works into the Republican Exhibition "Competition of the Folk Arts" in honor of the 20th anniversary of the October Revolution. In this, his very first exhibition, he won a certificate of good work and a three month trip to the N.K. Krupskaya Central House of Folk Arts to work under G.G. Ryazhsky a professor who taught painting at the Higher Art and Technical Workshops (VKhUTEMAS, now Moscow Art Institute named after V. I. Surikov).

For Lapin, the beginning of the Great Patriotic War coincided with the end of the tenth grade. He volunteered for military service and was sent to the Aviation Technical School in Volsk, Saratov region. He trained as a specialist mechanic for combat aircraft. Upon graduation Lapin was sent to the Leningrad Front. While serving in the field he met Konstantin D. Kitayko, who became Lapin's first mentor. He was awarded the Order of the Red Star and other medals for his military service.

After being demobilized in 1948 Lapin entered the Kharkov State Art Institute where his teachers included People’s Artists of the USSR, painting professors Grigory Tomenko and Pyotr Kotov. Lapin began participating in the All-Union exhibitions of young painters while a student. His thesis painting “At Dawn”, was exhibited in Moscow in the third review of student works and was acquired by a Moscow museum.

After graduating in 1954, Lapin immersed himself in his work, eventually focusing on three themes: "historic-revolutionary," "contemporary with me," and "military-patriotic." Lapin's work gained immense popularity during the late 1950s.

Lapin became a member of the Union of Artists of the Ukrainian SSR (1964). He was a member of the board of the Kharkiv organization of the Union of Artists of Ukraine, member of the board of the Republican Art Foundation, and served as chairman of the Kharkov Art Fund, and Mykolayiv Organization of the Union of Artists of Ukraine. He became a member of the USSR Academy of Arts.

Lapin participated in numerous republican, all-Union and foreign art exhibitions. His works were exhibited in Bulgaria, Canada, Poland and Japan. Personal exhibitions were held in Nikolaev (1973), Kharkov (1983) and Kiev (1985). Today Lapin’s works are found in museums throughout Russia and Ukraine as well as in private collections around the globe.

Viktor Ivanovich Lapin died on September 23, 1984 at 60 years of age.

From August 20 to October 14, 2013, the Kharkov Art Museum hosted the exhibition “Brush of Life and War”, dedicated to the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Kharkov. The exhibition included the work of Kharkov artists, veterans of the Great Patriotic War: Adolf Constantinople, Victor Lapin, Lev Fitilev, Ilya Efroimson and Stepan Pismenny.