Art has been swinging between polished idealism and hard realism for centuries. This homeless person was camped out in front of Hanson's studio in Soho, a rough neighbourhood in New York at the time. Hanson reproduced her – using casts of a chosen model – in plastic, with this shocking result. The Utrecht Caravaggisti, too, used real people to depict Christian saints, dirty feet and all. Raw reality is a necessary ingredient for powerful art. [text 2023]‘It’s my purpose to assist viewers of my work to see the world as it is, and in so doing seek ways to improve it’, 
Hanson wrote in a letter relating to the purchase of this work. His social commitment distinguished him from 
other Photorealists. Every day from his New York studio he saw homeless people like this woman, who is literally 
and figuratively isolated. [text 2024]