One of Bomberg's earliest teachers was Walter Sickert, although his work shows little evidence of any such influence. What both artists did share, however, was the centrality they gave to drawing as the necessary scaffolding for ever more daring painting - a legacy which would also be passed on to subsequent generations - but their differences were otherwise fundamental. Not least, Bomberg's idea of a 'spirit in the mass' introduced a spiritual and psychological dimension that is far removed from Sickert's concerns. Sickert may have explored the relationship between paired figures but seldom is individual psychology a prime concern. Instead Sickert is frequently more detached, his concerns more formal and his results often schematic. Bomberg, in contrast, often tends towards a more elemental expressionism. This difference is exemplified by these artists' self-portraits.

Whilst Sickert's occasional self-portraits tend to aggrandise the subject and to project the desired public face of a celebrated figure, Bomberg's numerous self-portraits became increasingly raw and uncensored expressions of emotional turmoil, suggesting that they fulfilled a therapeutic function for an artist who felt isolated, embittered and possessed little sense of an audience.

So densely worked is the picture that it also suggests an affinity with the early paintings of Auerbach and Kossoff, which is otherwise far less evident.