Russian born artist Raphael Soyer immigrated to the United States at age 13 in 1912. He studied art at Cooper Union, the National Academy of Design and the Art Students League. He quickly began emulating the Ashcan school, focusing on urban subjects and social realism. Soyer became associated with the Fourteenth Street School of painters that included Reginald Marsh, Isabel Bishop, Kenneth Hayes Miller, Peggy Bacon and, his teacher, Guy Pene du Bois. During the 1930’s Soyer worked with the WPA Federal Arts Project as well as participating in exhibits at the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Carnegie Institute, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Corcoran Gallery of Art, the National Academy of Design, and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts.