During the Second World War, John Kingsley Cook (1911-94) served in the merchant navy as a wireless officer. He joined in 1940, and went on his first sea voyage, to the United States, in December 1940. His ship was sunk off the coast of Algeria in 1941, the survivors being taken captive and held there until liberated after the Allied landing in North Africa in 1942. He resumed service after a few months recuperating at home, and was discharged in August 1945, when he joined the staff at the Edinburgh College of Art. There, he taught engraving and graphic design and lectured on the History of Art, before being appointed Head of Design in 1960. He retired in 1971.

Throughout the war, Cook drew his experiences. He also created a number of retrospective drawings in the 1980s, when he was working on his (unpublished) memoirs. 262 drawings and 2 paintings of his wartime experiences were presented by his family to the National Maritime Museum in 2012.

While at sea, Cook used the back of obsolete navigational charts for his drawings, sketching portraits of his crewmates on sections of the globe of their choice. He also executed a couple of self-portraits, as is the case here. Shortly before he made this one, on a day’s leave on shore, an unfortunate tennis accident gave him a black eye: perhaps this is why half his face is left in the shadow.

This self-portrait is drawn on the back of a fragment of a navigational chart showing soundings (deep), graticule, lines for magnetic variation, and part of a compass rose. Appears to adjoin fragment ZBA5254.