Auerbach is a close contemporary of Freud who also produced intensely focused portrait head studies of the same intimate circle of friends and sitters, with a similarly raw and unflinching commitment to capturing individual physiognomy and psychological character.

Kollwitz was a master printmaker whose figurative etchings share the same monochrome intimacy and meticulous linear technique seen in this head study, using the etching medium to convey deeply personal and psychologically charged portrait subjects.

Rego produced a significant body of figurative prints and portrait studies rooted in the British School tradition, sharing Freud's commitment to realistic and unflinching depictions of human subjects rendered with an intimate and psychologically penetrating quality.