This drawing is one of two charcoal studies for a painting by Edward Hopper, Portrait of Orleans, which was gifted to our collection by Jerrold and June Kingsley in 1991. Like many study drawings, this charcoal offers viewers the most when seen alongside the final work, a comparison that allows a glimpse of Hopper's thought process. In this case, the study seems to show the scene as it really was--with a utility pole blocking Hopper's view of the storefronts in the middle distance--but devoid of the figures that likely occupied the scene. In the final painting, Hopper opens up the scene, moving the utility pole to the far side of the intersection and widening the road. In addition, he adds the figure of a woman, to whom our eye is immediately drawn, the cars, elements that reintroduce one of the artists perennial themes: the alienation in the everyday. Together, the study drawing and the painting show how Hopper, a superlative observer of everyday life, was also a consummative master at subtly transforming a scene for emotional effect.