Augustus John had thirty-seven works in the 1913 Armory Show in New York, which introduced American audiences to progressive European art, although his style was indebted to the Old Masters. Between the wars, he became a leading society portraitist and a household name, though his reputation waned in his later years. He did many portraits of friends, lovers, and fellow artists and writers he admired, including Wyndham Lewis, Thomas Hardy and W.B. Yeats, who is the subject of this working drawing. John was invited in 1907 to engrave a portrait of Yeats for the frontispiece of a new collected edition of his poems. Although Yeats greatly admired the finished etching, it was not used. This drawing may have been made during one of their sittings.
Signed and inscribed in pencil at center right, John / W. B. Yeats.