The artist was born in the city of Bogoroditsk of the Tula province, his parents — Mikhail Vladimirovich Golitsyn and Anna lopuchin. To get involved in drawing began in his years of study in 5-th Moscow gymnasium in 1909 — 1917. Since 1919, he did the Window of GROWTH in Tula, was in charge of the poster workshop in Bogoroditsk. A love of art and travel infused his biography: in 1921, he worked in the workshop of P. P. Konchalovsky; the same year dated his participation in the expedition to Novaya Zemlya on Board the icebreaker "Malygin" — where he worked as a painter. V. Golitsyn participated in the construction of the first Soviet research vessel "Persey", then moved to Moscow, where he attended evening courses VKhUTEMAS. In 1925 at the International exhibition of decorative arts in Paris, the artist received a Gold medal in the class "Art and industry wood" — for painting of wooden products. The year before he began illustrating books, from 1925 worked with the magazine "the world Pathfinder", "Krugosvet", "pioneer",, "Knowledge is power". Then he began to invent a children's Board game, which brought him great fame. In the next ten years, the artist once again traveled a lot and even served as a sailor on the schooner "Friend of life".
In 1931 — moved to Dmitrov, where he wrote the book "the Dmitrovsky cranks": notes with pictures about interesting people of the city. In the mid-30s began to collaborate with writer Boris Zhitkov, working on his book, "Help is coming". At the beginning of the war, Golitsyn worked on the posters and magazine pictures in the anti-fascist theme.
