A member of the Union of the Russian Artists, he carried on democratic traditions of the Itinerants, aka the Association of Travelling Art Exhibitions (Before Punishment, 1884, the USSR Revolution Museum, Moscow). 

His key painting Na Miru that the artist worked for about 10 years on with a great number of sketches, Sergey Korovin addresses the life of the Russian peasantry. Congregation of villagers tries to solve a conflict between a poor man and a rich man. It expressed a realistic alive picture of the Russian village of the late 19th century. it is no surprise that Sergey Korovin regularly took part in exhibitions of the Itinerants, the World of Art association and was an active member of the Union of Russian Artists. 
 

A conservative painter, he finally changed his manner into more expressive and colourful. In the 2nd half of the 1890s his paintings showed more lyricism and greater interest in landscape, whereas elaborate details of his early paintings gave way to etude-like manner of broad strokes (Trinity Holiday, 1902, the Tretyakov Gallery). 
 

Among the illustrations by Sergey Korovin there stand out his expressive and tragic pictures to Nikolay Gogol's story The Overcoat (around 1900≈08, the Tretyakov Gallery and the Russian Museum).