Souza joined the Sir Jamsetjee Jeejebhoy School of Art in Bombay, but was expelled in 1945 for left-wing views. He sailed to London in 1949, met with the post-war ‘grimness of Britain’. Eventually, he settled in New York. Souza wrote to Borchard: ‘I’ll be delighted to be represented in your collection. I’m not a very good self portrait painter even though some critics think I’ve got an inflated ego.’ The picture is humane and compassionate, at once a graceful and grotesque vision of self. It appears rebarbative in its details, urgently provocative in colour. The moustache has comically elongated proportions. What appears to be a beard has turned into perhaps a necklace hanging from his moustache and around a scrawny neck. The sides of the face are at odd angles, the anguished eyes are popping out the forehead.