Although Warhol was unhappy with his appearance throughout his life, self-portraiture was a recurring theme in his oeuvre. Role-playing was a central aspect of many of his self-portraits and his Polaroid camera was an effective means of quickly documenting his changing personae. In this work Warhol appears older, with his sunken cheeks and a stern yet sombre expression on his face. From the 1970s until his death in 1987, many of Warhol’s self-portraits are haunted by his fear of death. This is more obvious in his self-portraits with skulls, but here, with the shadow around his jaw and hollow cheeks, his face itself looks distinctly skull-like.