Signed with monogram and dated l.r.: RR/93 and further signed, dated and inscribed with title (on backboard): Ray Richardson/1993/Blackeye

Charcoal, 38.5 by 28 cm

Provenance: acquired by the present owner from Abbott and Holder

Richardson is said to have captured this powerful self portrait following a sporting injury. Winner of the BP Portrait Award in 1990, his work featured in the 2014-15 exhibition Reality: Modern and contemporary British painting, at the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts and the Walker Art Gallery, a show that included work by Francis Bacon, Lucian Freud, David Hockney and Paula Rego. Richardson would almost certainly have been aware of Freud’s famous 1978 work Self Portrait with Black Eye.