William Crosbie was born in Hankow, China of Scottish parents. The family returned to Glasgow in 1926 and Crosbie entered Glasgow School of Art in 1932. During World War II he served in the Merchant Navy, but continued to produce paintings. After the war an important part of his work was mural painting, commissioned through his association with architects like Basil Spence and Jack Coia. The public reaction to Crosbie’s abstract surrealist paintings in the early years was largely hostile. However Crosbie’s work in painting murals, building models for architects, creating altarpieces and illustrating books allowed him the freedom to continue painting unrestricted. This drawing by caricaturist Emilio Coia is from Coia’s latter years and is closer to straight portraiture than his earlier swift, linear drawings. These drawings covered a great variety of members of Scottish artistic and political scene of the second half of the twentieth century.