Alexander Nikolayevich Samokhvalov (1894—1971) was an artist whose talent revealed itself in many artistic spheres. He used to work in easel, decorative and monumental painting, graphic art, was a scene painter and a book illustrator, he used to create posters and was occupied with the decorative and applied arts.

His talent manifested itself most vividly in the painting. From the new epoch of the 1920s the most attractive and inspiring character to the artist was the Soviet person. He was inspired by the socialist reality, and trying to feature the image of a new man, the society builder, the factory worker, the sportsman, the shockworker.

Samokhvalov created a great number of touching children’s portraits. The painting “Boy with a toy plane” is one of the examples. A boy keeps a model of the soviet plane in his hands. Something has distracted him and he turned his head to the side. The picture is painted in soft pastel tones and looks as if it’s wrapped in smoke. Such palette and brush work can be seen in case with many painter’s children portraits. The boy’s hands are shown schematically and seemingly unfinished.

This work is interesting not only because of its cover side, but also the reverse side. It was used by Samokhvalov to make a sketch for the painting ‘Girl wearing a t-shirt’ which became one of the most famous artist’s works.