In this sombre, contemplative lithographic self-portrait, the artist's eyes are half-hidden underneath the cap he is wearing, with the attention drawn instead to his wristwatch, alluding to the inevitable passing of time. As both an insider and outsider, simultaneously at the heart of the contemporary British art establishment, and also an American Jew – personal identity and, latterly, a broader Jewish identity – are at the heart of Kitaj's later work, which included a number of such highly introspective self-portraits. This work was executed at the time when Kitaj was selecting a group of works by British artists to form the core of an exhibition for the Arts Council of Great Britain, 'The Human Clay' (1976). In an accompanying essay, he described figurative painters including Michael Andrews, Frank Auerbach, Francis Bacon, Lucian Freud, Leon Kossoff and himself as representing a 'School of London', a term that has been much debated since then.