This is one of a series of portraits of the actor and comedian, Max Wall (1908 - 1990), which Hambling began in 1981. The steeply tilted floor creates an unsettling mood of unreality as the wreaths of smoke form the ghostly face of a baboon in the air between them. The artist wrote:'When we rested between sittings, my studio became his theatre - he told stories and jokes, did disappearing tricks with an egg, sang songs to the cats, and walked up and down....I found 'Max and Me' quite a challenge and the only thing of which I was certain was that the picture should be very tall as we are both rather short. It is painted as if the viewer were a bird in the air outside the window looking in at us from above.'