In a letter to Borchard, the artist wrote he had ‘done about four self portraits in oil so far and I’m not really pleased with any of them.’ He proposed to work again soon. The 1966 self portrait shows a strongly modelled head in bold semi-profile set against the domestic geometry of window panes, through which the presumably late spring or summer day filters. The garden view is abstracted into a delicate impression of leaves, sunlight and earth. Freeth appears as a man of exceptional sensitivity, yet there seems to be something emotionally frozen in the rather glassy look, itself heightened by the pronounced shadow under the eye and the pursed, unyielding lips. His stern mien indicates a note of suppressed sadness and dissatisfaction.