This portrait was painted by eighteen-year-old Gunn when he was a student. It was conceived as a companion to his own equally experimental portrait by Hutchison, painted in the same year. Both pictures share qualities of studied informality and a preference for sombre colours and fluent brushwork, recalling the early paintings of Scottish Colourist, S J Peploe. After the First World War, Gunn settled in London where he decided to focus on portraiture. He continued to exhibit regularly in Scotland and occasionally worked in his native Glasgow on receiving commissions for civic and academic portraits.