This series of prints are portraits of so called 'Gueules cassées', the french nickname for the injured soldiers of the First World War, who had severely maimed faces and bodies.

The five faces are named after the letters from the word 'poilu', in the international radiotelephony spelling alphabet (Papa, Oscar, India, Lima, Uniform). 'Poilu' is an informal term for a French World War I infantryman, meaning literally 'hairy one'.