On 9 March 2012, Taras Shevchenko’s 198th birthday anniversary, the Shevchenko National Prize Award Ceremony took place in Kaniv. Anatoly Kryvolap was awarded in Fine Arts nomination for his Ukrainian Motive cycle, which included 50 abstract landscapes. The whole cycle consists of seven series of paintings celebrating the beauty of Ukrainian nature – from the Crimea and the Carpathians to the artist’s beloved sceneries of the Kyiv region. The ceremony was held in Kaniv and attended by the President of Ukraine.
The art critic Dmytro Gorbachov expressed high regards for Kryvolap’s accomplishments. In his opinion, Shevchenko National Prize had always been given to Ukraine’s greatest masters of painting such as Mykola Gluschenko. He also recalled Kryvolap’s artworks being highly estimated by the French critics and artists when exhibited in France along with paintings by other members of the Picturesque Preserve artists association. ‘Then my French counterpart told me, that he had then seen Europe’s best school of painting,’ Gorbachov said.