Looking dapper in a collegiate kind of way – with his red-orange bow-tie, sweater and shirt in different shades of green, neatly coiffured, wavy blonde hair and prominent glasses – the artist looks the epitome of the mid-50s smart young man, a veritable aesthete-intellectual. Ruth Borchard most likely first encountered Berrisford's work in Jack Beddington's 1957 book Young Artists of Promise, and between 1959 and 1960 the two exchanged several letters relating to this self-portrait. Writing to Philip Vann in 2001, Peter Berrisford asked why, in this picture, 'did I elongate myself?' The answer perhaps could be that, by making his seated posture appear as tall, erect and intent-looking as possible, he was able to accentuate a sense of the artist's rapt, dignified absorption in the subject. In his later life, Berrisford wrote about the importance of art education for children, and his then seemingly daring suggestions regarding art appreciation for the young have now become routinely part of the way art is taught in many British schools.