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Colquhoun is an artist who studied at the Slade and whose work is in the National Portrait Gallery Collection. Colquhoun’s 1929 self portrait, painted while at the Slade, is characteristic of 20th-century British art with its green-tinged palette. It is a daringly unabashed female self portrait for its time. The short skirt is upraised somewhat by the figure’s casually seated posture, showing sturdy legs and the inner right thigh, and the breasts are revealingly modelled by the tight sweater. In a 1966 correspondence between the spiritually concerned artist and Borchard, they discuss spiritual matters, especially the Kabbalah, the Jewish mystical tradition. There is a subtle use of white to highlight and illuminate flesh, clothes and surging water and sky.