Kossoff was born in Islington but following the declaration of war in 1939, was evacuated. He returned to London in 1943 and decided to take up drawing, briefly attending classes at St Martins School of Art. After a period of army service, the young Kossoff discovered a completely different capital, one ravaged by war. He continued at St Martins but struggled with the emphasis placed on formal draughtsmanship. As such, he developed two styles, a controlled method for school and a freer procedure in his studio. He had met Frank Auerbach who 'perceived in Kossoff's roughly executed and sometimes awkward drawings a force of conviction which transcended facility' (Paul Moorhouse, Leon Kossoff, Tate Publishing, 1996, p.11). During 1950-2, the two men studied under David Bomberg whose freedom of expression provided the necessary energy and liberation that Kossoff had needed.

At the time, existentialist thought was popular and one of the key elements was a focus on materials and process in art acting as vehicles for the artist's inner life. 'In Kossoff's paintings of the fifties the sense of struggle to realise the image, his extreme engagement with materials and the assertive physical character of the works themselves, are emphasised to an extraordinary degree' (Op.Cit., p.14).

This is particularly evident in the present work, a very early self portrait. In this rare drawing, the artist has worked and reworked the surface of the sheet, from which his own spectre emerges.