Study for a Portrait is from a sequence of four similarly sized paintings of the same subject executed by Francis Bacon in 1952. The paintings show the head and shoulders of a man seated against a curtained screen (such as that found in a restaurant or pub) or balustrade (for a balcony, handrail or bedstead) and enclosed within a space-frame. The representation of a primal scream – a favourite example for Bacon of human deformation under stress – is central to his iconography from very early on and came to define his vision. Bacon’s portrayal of the scream here is a close transcription of a film still – used time and again by Bacon for its talismanic power – of the screaming nurse with broken glasses from Sergei Eisenstein’s The Battleship Potemkin 1925. However, the gaping mouth could also be suggestive of struggling for breath – a sign of suffocation, desperation or even ecstasy – and a reference to Bacon’s own asthmatic condition.