Cultural depictions of Ned Kelly a "significant respect for authority". Former criminal and celebrity Chopper Read produced numerous paintings of Ned Kelly, alluding directly to Sidney Nolan's imagery. One of Read's paintings features Kelly with a woman's breasts. He explained that "it relates to the fact that I think Kelly was a homosexual, ... I'm not really a fan of his. I'm tired of people calling me the modern-day Ned Kelly." However, Read compared himself with Kelly in some of his paintings. One such self-portrait titled "Tast Ful Old Criminal" ["sic"] was purchased amid controversy by the State Library of Victoria in 2003. "The Story
Ned Kelly Richards—shoot him before he shoots me". The party then interceded for Richards, but Kelly said, "He must die". Before leaving Ned Kelly remarked that he had made a great blunder which would likely lead to their capture. Months prior to arriving in Jerilderie, Kelly composed a lengthy letter with the aim of tracing his path to outlawry, justifying his actions, and outlining the injustices he and his family suffered at the hands of the police. He also decries the treatment of poor selector families by Victoria's Squattocracy, and, in "an escalating promise of revenge and retribution", invokes "a mythical tradition