Lieutenant-Colonel T E Lawrence, CB, DSO, 1918

One can perhaps attribute McBey's position as a successful and respectable outsider in the art world to his being self-taught, a characteristic that has sometimes irritated the establishment. It seems entirely in keeping with this impression we have of the artist that, while recording everything he saw as he went through Palestine and Syria with the British Expeditionary Force between 1917 and 1918, he also chose to paint the portrait of another outsider, Lawrence of Arabia, albeit one who was rapidly becoming a celebrity.