On April 28, 1909, John Sloan wrote in his journal: “A good day’s work, painting on the subject that has been stewing in my mind for some weeks. I have been watching a curious two room household, two women and, I think, two men, their day begins after midnight, they cook at 3 A.M.” His scene of underdressed working-class women shocked contemporary audiences, and the painting was rejected by exhibition juries.

Born in Lock Haven, Pennsylvania, Sloan worked as a Philadelphia newspaper illustrator and trained at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. He moved to New York in 1904, where the views from his Chelsea apartment provided intimate new subjects of urban life.