Jackowski and the painter Christopher Couch decided to draw each other in the summer of 1981. Jackowski wrote:

'This took place in the upstairs room of his small dark terrace house in Southampton Street, up the hill from me. I didn't at first have any thoughts of doing a painting but after a week or so an image crystallised in my mind, particularly the sweep of the neck and the whole curve of the posture. Once I had that, I painted the whole thing in my studio.'