This is one of 17 self-portraits by Charles Bush in the Archibald Prize between 1940 and 1985. The Art Gallery of New South Wales collection has several other self-portrait studies on paper, as well as this particular self-portrait.
Bush painted a portrait of his partner, fellow artist Phyl Waterhouse, as a companion piece to this self-portrait. It was also exhibited in the 1958 Archibald Prize and is now in the collection of the State Library of Victoria.