Concerned with the everyday rather than the sublime, Alfred Boucher’s Laborer explores the contortions and tensing muscles of a man’s body as he lifts a shovel. Contemporary critics declared it an excellent example of modern democratic art: "What a masterpiece is this superb giant attached by his labor to the earth! What philosophy! What magnificence! What verve!"

Boucher enjoyed great success with this piece, which won the medal of honor for sculpture at the 1891 French Salon. Nine years later he established a circular three-story artist’s studio called La Ruche (the Beehive) in the Vaugirard neighborhood of Paris. It gave young artists such as Alexander Archipenko, Constantin Brancusi, Marc Chagall, Fernand Léger, Jacques Lipchitz, Amedeo Modigliani, Diego Rivera, and Chaim Soutine a place to live, sculpt, share models, and exhibit their work.