This work is one of six surviving canvases from the original series of twelve that were first exhibited in April 1963 in Apple Sees Red: Live Stills at Gallery One in London. The head-and-shoulder portraits of Billy Apple were taken in late 1962 by Robert Freeman (b. 1936), a well-known professional photographer, who used a similar format to shoot the Beatles in August 1963 for their second album cover, With the Beatles. The canvases were printed by professional printer Roy Crosset in the print workshop at the Royal College of Art in London.