Irakli Toidze was a versatile artist: his creative interests encompassed paintings, graphic art, posters, set design and book illustrations. His drawings made at a very early age used to be published in many periodicals.

He studied in the Faculty of Painting at the Tbilisi State Academy of Arts (1925–1930) and while being a student, took part in a number of exhibitions.

Irakli Toidze moved to Moscow in 1931. There, together with the elder prominent artists such as his father Mose Toidze, and Eugen (Yevgeny) Lanceray and Iosif Charlemagne as well as  his peers Apolon Kutateladze, Shalva Dzneladze, and Shalva Mamaladze  he was involved into the book illustration project for the Egnate Ninoshvili’s literature works.   The book was published in 1922 and was his first major creative endeavor.  

Besides book illustrations he created thematic works, compositions depicting everyday scenes, and celebrity portraits.  The illustrations for the  Shota Rustaveli’s poem “Knight in the Panther’s Skin” and the Portrait of Shota Rustaveli, painted in 1937 for Rustaveli’s 750th Anniversary, are among Irakli Toidze’s most important works.

In the early days of the war, Irakli Toidze created a famous “Motherland is Calling!” poster – one of the most powerful WWII Soviet images.

Throughout his life, Irakli Toidze has received numerous awards including People’s Artist of the Georgian SSR (1980), four-time Laureate of the USSR State Prize (1941, 1948, 1949, 1951), Honorary Citizen of Tbilisi (1982), and Honored Artist of the Georgian SSR (1982).